The Steelers had off this past Sunday and are busy welcoming back Big Ben. While they were busy getting prepared for next Sunday's game I took time off as well. To help with my youngest daughter's science project. She is to collect 12-15 different insects for a study of entomology. She is to kill these insects, identify them, and pin them to a board for a collection. It is not a project I relished.
Two years ago my niece had this same project only she had to collect 48 different insects. You can read and see her project here. She knew about her project four months ahead of schedule and she had all summer to collect them. Since I spent quite a bit of the summer with her I got to experience and help her in this project. I actually transported a giant scarab beetle we found outside our hotel in Tennessee all the way to Illinois where it got loose in the car before we gave up on the damn thing and chucked it. I can still remember opening my sister-in-law's freezer to get an ice pop and instead finding a bag with a frozen insect! I thought then it was an incredibly hard and idiotic assignment.
Fast forward to now and my constant itching. Not to mention that I'm helping two kids complete this assignment. My friend, the mother of Darcy's buddy, Sarina, absolutely abhors animals of any kind. One time I was standing outside her front door talking to her. She was inside the house and as we talked she started to slowly close the front door until only her face was peeking out. At this point she said, "I'm sorry, but there is a cat behind you trying to get inside my house so I have to close the door good-bye." And she did just that. I stood there thinking, "What?" and I turned around to find a small kitten at the end of her driveway heading my way, a good sixty feet away from the front door. I knew then she didn't like animals. She does tolerate my dog, but I would never ask her to care for him or pop over to let him out in an emergency. Now her daughter has a project where insects will have to be brought into her home. No way! Sarina's insects have been residing at my house.
Since I do not want Jyoti's fears to cross to her daughter (more so then they already have) I took it upon myself to help her catch her 12 insects. She found two dead insects at school and passed them to me in baggies. She discovered a large grasshopper during break time in the grass at the school's sports field and Darcy and a classmate caught it. Since Jyoti doesn't want Sarina to have to kill any insects and risk therapy down the road Darcy killed the grasshopper in the "kill jar" with a fingernail polish soaked Kleenex. Meanwhile Darcy has nonchalantly collected insects from the neighbors' garages and lawns. The two boys down the street gave her a grasshopper, a dragonfly and a roach. The neighbor next door offered her a cricket. I found several bugs for both girls in the windowsill of the garage and our screened in back porch. Most all of these bugs were already dead.
The assignment was to kill the insects and then dry them out. Most of ours were already dried out. Unfortunately when we started to identify and pin them we found that they were slightly over dried. Several were missing limbs and some just plain exploded into pieces when the pin pierced them. Darcy's bugs that is. Sarina's bugs were nicely preserved and she completed her board by the end of our Sunday nine hour work day.
We started at 1:00 PM on Sunday. We had the two girls, three adults, and later, Madison, identifying these insects. We were to use Purdue University's entomology website, and we downloaded a huge file of pictures and information of insects found in the field. It took forever! We had a magnifying glass and one pair of surgical tweezers (from Connie in the hospital). Jyoti, Sarina, and I worked on Sarina's bugs while Kelly, Madison, and Darcy worked on hers. It took about 6 hours to identify all of the bugs and I think I may have just made up one along the way.
The pinning came next and Kelly and Jyoti took over that project while Madison and I cooked dinner. I did manage to catch the end of the Tampa Bay Bucs' game on the TV and watch the Rays' baseball game on my second computer screen, but for the most part sports were out and insects were in. By the time 10:00 PM rolled around I was done. I made the girls pack up their projects, sent the guests home, and tucked Darcy into bed. Five of her bugs are useless and so we are back out in nature come Tuesday. The project is due next Monday. She has Friday off from school. It all has to be completed by Sunday's Steelers' kick-off at 1:00 PM. Come hell or high water....
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