The Wonderful Whiney Walk

The kids wanted to go for a walk today to look for more milk weed plants and monarch caterpillars.  So Doug decided we would walk down around my neighbor's pond and property and also look for blackberries.


Whew!  It was hot!  Why we chose to go at 1:30 in the afternoon on this sweltering hot day, I do not know.  I need another shower!


The walk started out okay and then quickly went downhill,  literally and figuratively.  The kids started fighting.  Then whining.  Then Nick got angry and wanted to go home.  He and Keira wanted to stay by the pond and try to catch fish with their hands, but Doug and I told them they needed to stay with us.  For safety reasons.  I would hate for one of them to fall into the water, even though they both can swim.  The pond is pretty gross (you will see a picture below).


Alex was getting frustrated because our neighbor hasn't been mowing the paths out and the grass and weeds were way taller than him.  He kept getting stuck by jaggers and tripping over sticks.


On top of that, it is so stinkin' hot and humid out today.  Everyone just seemed to get on everyone else's nerves.  Quickly.


I did manage to get a few photos though.  :)

This was my view most of the time ... bringing up the rear.  :)  

See how tall the weeds and grass are?

Picking blackberries.

I'm pretty sure this is a weed, but I thought it was pretty.

Keira and Nick trying to catch fish with a container.  

They've done it before, but not today.  See how gross the pond is?

I also put this pic on my Project 365 blog.  I believe it is a dragonfly (not a damselfly).  He kept checking me out and was nice enough to pose for me on this weed.  How cool is he?!

Keira and I did manage to find some more milk weed plants ... right by our house.  Love the irony of that.  NOT!  And one plant had a caterpillar on it, which is now in the bug box with the rest.  The caterpillars are getting pretty big, so I imagine they'll starting forming their chrysalis soon.  


We now have 6 caterpillars ... 5 big ones and 1 little one.  The baby one that I posted the pic of the other day died.  The wind blew the container down and he fell out and got squished.  :(  But we stopped by a lake on the way home yesterday to get some more milk weed leaves (since Nick told me we didn't have any more by our house - I should have looked myself).  Anyway, Keira found a caterpillar there also so we brought it home.


I think we'll be spending the rest of the day in the air-conditioned house.  Although I expect we won't be without anymore whining.  That seems to be a constant.  :)

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