Bug hunt

After spending the first half of the day playing lawnboy and computer repair man, I expected to get some down time in the evening. I picked up the girls from their mother's and figured I'd take them to a movie after dinner. But... I was informed by their mother that Darby hadn't finished her science project. Ugh.

The project: Catch and kill 20 insects, identify them, glue them to a poster board with labels.

I had asked Darby's mother to work with her on it, because she has pet tarantulas, and she has to feed them crickets and other multi-legged creatures, so I figured this task was up her alley. But as Darby didn't capture enough bugs at her mom's, that meant I would get a lot more involved in this project than I expected.

It also meant we got to spend the evening catching bugs, killing them (neatly), gluing them to a poster board, and identifying them. Not as relaxing as a movie. I took the girls to a nature trail I'm familiar with and had Darby catching whatever we saw moving. While we did catch a few usable specimens, our timing was terrible. As the sun was on its way down, the mosquitoes were out in force, and we had to abort, as we were under heavy attack. Instead, we ended up exploring my father's back yard.

Darby had acquired just over half the bugs she needed at her mothers, so we still had a bit of work to do. Fortunately between the trail and my father's, we got all but two of the bugs we needed. We'll have to get the rest tomorrow, as the project is due Monday. We glued what we had to the board, and let it sit to dry overnight.