Crawfish On The Counter And Caterpillars In The Closet

well, you got a little taste of our bizarre-ness with my little expose on the fact that we have a crawfish on our counter...and the clams that have met their demise. but, in order that you didn't permanently label us the "homeschool freaks," i neglected to also mention that we had a caterpillar in our closet. you see, my husband found it on the driveway about a week ago and brought it inside for the kids. it was one of those cute woolly bear caterpillars (i just dig the music on this page by the way) that supposedly you can tell the severity of the upcoming winter with, so we put it into our butterfly habitat and began to feed it...and feed it...and feed it. did i mention we fed it? i could not believe how much spinach this little guy could put away. we're talking about three to five large leaves of spinach a day. and did i mention that he made the biggest mess i've ever seen...(and that you've ever seen now, don't mention it, you can thank me later).anyway, he must have been storing up all he ate for a special occasion because this morning we found this...
here, let me give you a closer look...just about as tasty as the floor of the habitat huh? well, we haven't decided yet if it is a cocoon or he is just hibernating. in what we have read about this type of caterpillar, they hibernate for the winter and then in the spring they "come to" and make their cocoons. but, i'm not quite sure what time of the year this guy thought it was living in our closet. so, we'll see. i'll keep you updated.