Brian the Caterpillar

I've learned something about myself in the past few months. While I may SUCK at creating and maintaining an outdoor garden, I am a veritable Chlorophyllic Maestro with indoor plants. If I plant it indoors and in a pot, a plant has no choice but to flourish under my wizened tutelage.

One of the plants I had a little trouble with was my mint. My mint patch on the outside of the house seems to be the only thing that grows, it is taking over my lawn. But in a pot, I didn't think it was going to catch.... until Saturday. On Saturday I noticed that the wilted leaves had new life, a few extra buds, and an overall look of health. So I watered it, thanked it for doing a good job, and placed it beside the other herbs. Here is one of the batches of recently rejuvenated leaves:


Sunday morning, I wake up and wander into the kitchen to pour myself a bowl of delicious Chex. I happen to glance over at the herb patch and... CATASTROPHE!



WTF!?!?!? Look at my poor plant! The leaves, that just ten hours ago were sprightly and green, are now just nubbins! It's scraggly and all crumbly looking. What the hell happened?

Well, I did a little investigation, and after 3 or 4 minutes of close inspection, I found the culprit:


This little guy, his name is Brian, ate the shit out of my plant. I was very mad at Brian, Brian almost became mush. However, my better sensibilities took over and I figured I already know what he eats, I may be able to keep him and watch him metamorphose into whatever. (Butterfly? Moth?)

So, Brian has a new home in my son's bug terrarium. I put a few sprigs of mint in there from the outside garden, lo and behold he began munching more mint. Hungry little thing. So, On Monday morning I check on him, and I see this:


See the little wisps of filament? He's making a cocoon! And this morning, He's got much more of his house built:


So, watch for an upcoming post of the finished product, and hopefully some time down the road, hopefully you'll get to see Brian the Caterpillar morph into Brian the Butterfly!

- Yuk

Back from the dead

Some of you may have seen me posting a bit, and I count many of the folks that followed my blog as friends. Maybe I owe a little explanation. So, just where the hell have I been?

Well, you know. Life, work, other hobbies, living in a small letterboxing desert, getting overwhelmed with LTC's and the like; all of it combined to keep me away from letterboxing for a long time.

But, I missed it. A LOT. So I'm back, albeit in a much more limited capacity. Life is much too busy for me to devote a lot of time to events, ltc's, postals, the AQ message boards. But I'm finding and I'm planting, and that's what's important.

One caveat: I owe some folks an LTC. I'm not apologizing for backing away from the hobby for a little bit, but I'm also not one to go back on my word. I'm working on an idea for my last LTC. It should be, if it works, my best effort and will have another collaborator from outside of letterboxing. It won't be immediate, or maybe even soon. But preboxed, Mama Cache, and a few others, you're first on the list.

So where the hell have I been?

Today, I found a box I've wanted to find for a looooong time..



I'm back, and I'm bad.