Psalm 17:8 (another video)

"Keep me as the apple* of the eye;  Hide me in the shadow of Thy wings."

* - or, the daughter

Silkworm Science

This is our second time studying the silkworm lifecycle.  The kids think the silkworms are very cool.  I think they are cool, and a little bit disgusting at the same time.  Dave does not like them at. all.  He nicknames the silkworms things like, "End Times," and "Naked," "Wretched," and "Blind."  Hee hee.

What do you think?  Cool?  Gross?  Apocalyptic?

Our stockpile of mulberry leaves, the only thing these guys eat.

I promise that Aaron's green smoothie does not contain blenderized mulberry leaves!

Here is a fantastic site about the rearing of the domesticated silkworm aka bombyx mori.  Silkworms have been bred for silk production for thousands of years.  These guys are now very resistant to disease, tolerate a lot of handling, and spin lots and lots of silk when they enter their cocoon (pupa) phase.

Even Lily thinks they are cool.  She can even very clearly say, "Wormie!"

So the kids have been keeping science journals about them.  They have been measuring them. . .

Comparing them to other objects. . .

Making observations. . .
Here you see one of them in the first stage of spinning his cocoon.  Pretty neat, huh?

Some of them even had to accompany us on our road trip to Southern California that we took over Memorial Day weekend.  I needed to keep feeding them mulberry leaves, so we stuck them in a shoe box and put them on our car console for the trip.  Dave was not happy.  Here he is saying (while I am trying to get a photo), "Don't open that box!"

All of them in their cocoons!  After they had finished spinning them, we took them out of the enclosure and put them on this tray lined with paper towel so we could observe them better.

And look who I found this morning when I got up to check on them!  Our first moth has emerged from her cocoon :-).  As gross as they may be, they are very fascinating and an amazing display of God's creativity!  Who would imagine that something wrinkled and floppy would become this winged, fuzzy, six legged creature?

A sketch from Nathan's journal dated 5-16-2012.   Here is what he wrote (with original spelling and mechanics):
"We'v Been studying silk worms in school.  Silkworms are a certain catterpilar that only eat mulBerry leafs, spin silk, and make cacoons of silk.  my biggesdt is about 1 in. .75, my smallest on the other hand is about 1/2", the biggst is named Mushroom, the mediumest is named black out, and my Last and smallest is named silkie."

Aaron just climbed out of bed and I showed him our new moth.  Can't wait to see what the other kids think.
More to come about these guys. . . stay tuned. . .

Our Father's Love

The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him ~ Psalm 103:13, NLT