The fall of my third grade year, my parents moved my two sisters and me from 'the city' to 'the country'. My first and best memory of it was finding all of these beautiful caterpillars. Us 'city girls' collected them and put them in jars with loads of leaves to eat. Each night I would look at them and hope by morning I would have a jar full of butterflies. All I ever found was a dead caterpillar and a pile of poo. I don't think they ever even ate the bounty of leaves I stashed in there for them. Now each fall seeing these guys roaming about brings back a little spark of that first year's excitement. A couple of years ago, as I was driving the car down the road with my adult daughter, I saw one ahead on the road and simply did a tiny swerve to avoid him, not really even thinking about it. The car was silent for a minute and my daughter said "Did you just swerve to miss that caterpillar?" I gave her a sheepish grin. On my birthday card that year she added a note..."I love you even more now that I know you swerve to miss caterpillars"
woolly bear caterpillars are what they are called and they turn into a plain old yellow moth...I was so bummed when I Googled it just now...actually until now, I didn't even know what they were called for real. I wish I had not Googled it...I wanted them to be gorgeous orange and black butterflies.
This is just perfect and your story is even better then perfect! What a blessing to know you! :) Anyone who swerves to miss a caterpillar is my kind of gal! xxoo
Most people are fond of the Wooly Bear. Some try and predict the coming winter based on their stripes. I too thought they would turn into butterflies at one time. I know they don't change into a moth until the spring. They go through a pretty brutal winter so don't read about that. You need a bumper sticker, "I swerve for Wooly Bears." (:
really cute! All my life, when we saw these, we would say how severe the winter was according to his stripes. Although I can't remember what means what!
@sailingmusic - According to legend, the wider that middle brown section is (i.e., the more brown segments there are; there are 13 segments over all), the milder the coming winter will be. Conversely, a narrow brown band is said to predict a harsh winter. According to Vicki's caterpillar we are in for a harsh winter
