A couple weeks ago I bought a plant. A nice, pretty plant with lots of purple flowers. I came downstairs the morning after I bought this plant to find a bunch of petals/dirt/plant debris and who knows what else on the counter surrounding the plant. I had no idea where it was coming from. Was Fauxpaw jumping up on the counter and eating it? Not that I had seen. I continued to find this mess every morning.
A week ago I had walked into the dark kitchen, flipped on the light, and to my surprise I saw a caterpillar on my pretty purple plant. Upon further inspection I saw not just one caterpillar, but five. Five hungry caterpillars chewing on my pretty purple plant and dropping their debris and frass (insect poop, I learned this in entomology the other day) all over the place! Caterpillar frass all over my counter, gross!
Now I know that for the past month I have been killing lots of bugs for my collection, but sometimes I just feel bad for certain bugs and I can't kill them. When Kory and I went out to Jennings Creek, I found a fuzzy caterpillar sitting on a rock in the middle of the creek, with some of his outer fuzziness all wet. He had probably fallen out of a tree, and I felt so bad for him. I put down my net and picked him up and put him up on the dry land. I felt the same away about these poor caterpillars, even though they were chomping their way through my plant. So I let them be.
Needless to say, the plant died a few days ago. This means that the caterpillars no longer had food to eat. I came downstairs in the morning once again to find one of the caterpillars on another plant close by, and who knew where the other ones were! Later that day I found one crawling up on the wall, one crawling on my couch (that Fauxpaw was stalking), one on the floor. First they were invading my plant, and now they were invading my apartment!
I know it's my fault, but I just couldn't get rid of them. I couldn't even put them outside because what if it was too cold for them? Who even knows if they're from around here. So right I have them all in an old tupperware bowl (that is missing a lid) with a lid (that is missing the bowl) and my goodness. I have never seen anything eat and poop more in my life. I think they poop even more than the baby starlings did. I give them three big pieces of lettuce everyday, and when I get home from work all the lettuce has been turned into frass.
What a mess.