a day in the life of a homeschooler

i really need to clean the house, but...

we've had unseasonably cool weather in texas for the entire summer. it is fall now and time to start opening windows and coming out of hibernation (for me anyway). i've never lived in a harshly cold climate, being from so. cal, arizona, now texas--so i consider myself a cold weather person. one winter in chicago and i am sure i'd change my opinion.

the hubster brought home a gecko two days ago. we set up a terrarium and started reading up on keeping these little critters. when i realized there was a need to handle and keep live food, i got a bit apprehensive. but fair weather prevailed and out into the backyard we went.

we live on an acre (country enough for a city girl i always say), and get a fine selection of butterflies wafting through our yard. when we arrived home yesterday we were greeted by a large yellow and black striped tiger swallowtail a huge monarch, and like many others, our land is frequented by common sulphers.

we weren't on a mission to catch and identify butterflies this day, but small insects to feed our gecko. unemployment still hangs heavily upon us, but the yard is an excellent resource for feeding our new little mouth.

net in hand, i lumbered (i no longer gracefully flit or prance or anything, basically, i lumber) out to see what i could catch. i caught a large grasshopper. about an inch and a half in length. then a few small victims.

did you know that in some states it is illegal to pull the legs off crickets before feeding them to lizards? they are live food, why would pulling their legs off before feeding them to something be a crime? i don't get that and it roused great perplexity in the human condition (where we suck live babies out of wombs by "choice" but can't pull legs off a cricket. ugh!).

anyway, back to the grasshoppers. we caught a huge one, then later that afternoon, another slightly smaller one. i put them in the container and set them aside while i went about the things i had to do. those grasshoppies created such a ruckus i wasn't sure i'd keep them. they were making horrible noises like grasshopperlechter was trying to dismember and devour his cellmate.

they eventually settled down and when i went to investigate the silence, i found them locked in the embrace of love. spindly legs interwoven, the smaller grasshoppy had mounted the larger and had imbedded himself (rather awkwardly i might add)into her abdomen. i was intrigued by this turn of events and called my girl over.

they're mating (my husband informs me that before then she had only known this activity to be "wrestling" :D oh well.). we discuss the intricacies of mating (in as few details as possible) and watch for a while, then set the container down. we happened to have them in a clear container, so it was easy to gaze at their l'amour for any length of time, from any angle. (weird ha?)

anywhoo, i looked over at their container from time to time and finally at the clock because i thought it would make a humorous story to know they had been entangled for, say, a half hour or however long it took. how long does it take?

well, let's just say, i first looked at the clock about a half hour into their embrace at 3:10 pm. i checked back from occasion, and would quip to my girl, they are still "doing it" an unfortunate expression she now understands in terms of grasshoppies that is. two hours later. yeup. five hours later. wow. i was beginning to get bored, but i don't bore that easily. when i went to bed sometime after 11 pm, they were still locked in love's embrace. can you believe it?

i expected to find him dead on the bottom of the container. but no. they were nonchalant this morning, like nothing happened. i understood why some insects eat their mates after mating, maybe it is the only way to get them off their back! literally.

what does all this mean and why am i telling you, who knows. i just thought it was hilarious. i'll let you know when the babies arrive. those two solved my live bait problem, that's for sure. i don't mind handling grasshoppers, they don't look as dark and evil as crickets. hope our gecko likes grasshoppies.

...now back to cleaning!