This is a beetle. The kids found it outside of the house, thankfully. I'm actually not afraid of beetles...I would rather have them than a biting centipede...even if this thing does hiss at you and grab onto a stick if you poke it at him....but then, I don't normally bite either, but I might if you poke a stick at me. This particular beetle brought back some memories for me though. We had these things in Nuigini growing up. If you caught them while they were still alive and stuck them in the freezer, then pulled them out the next day and squeezed them...they would hiss still. It was a lot of good fun for us!
This is Fluffy. Right now, the kids are obsessed with chickens. I was sitting on the porch one evening watching the kids playing, when a chicken nonchalantly walked into our gate. Bridger saw it first and yelled to the girls. All four kids went crazy. They surrounded the poor thing...everyone coming in from a different side. Screaming and shouting and crying soon followed. I was dying laughing because they looked like little cavemen, trying to catch their dinner. I yelled to David to come and watch. He walked out slowly with his cup of tea in hand and walked right into the chaos. I was thinking how brave he was to just walk into the mob. All the sudden, the cornered chicken got loose and came running at David. All the kids of course, were following. Bridger, somehow didn't see David and ran right into him...his full force coming just at David's knees. I could see David stumble and the tea went everywhere. Bridger yelled his apologies as he recovered and went on to catch that poor, poor chicken. I'm surprised it didn't die of a heart attack. It finally found it's chance and it flew over the fence and the kids went back to playing as if nothing had happened, I wiped away my tears and David went to refill his tea...and life went on. A couple weeks later, the kids came running in with this little guy. Jadyn caught it, so it was hers. She named it Fluffy and it became her best friend. It was almost like a puppy. One day I found it in her bed, taking a nap. It started walking around the yard and was pretty much in heaven. I found that whenever I played the piano, it would come walking in the door and just sit there and listen to me. The kids started putting it up on the piano and it would fall asleep listening to the music. I didn't realize that chickens had so much personality...or that they went to the bathroom...constantly. Fluffy roosted on the bars of the kitchen window every night. Somehow, word got out to the neighborhood cats, that there was a winner, winner chicken dinner for freeeeeee....and Fluffy is no more. But we have a picture of him...and my lumpy face....I'm not sure what that's all about.
The other day I decided to take the kids on a field trip. We got the bus and took it into town and it dropped us off at the waterfront. We walked for a couple of miles till we found a nice little, rocky beach. Bridger immediately got out his fishing gear. He doesn't have a fishing pole, but he has line and a hook and that's all a little guy of 8 yrs. needs. We stayed for 2 hours and he stood in the water that whole time, determined to catch a fish. Well, he didn't and he was pretty upset with me for taking him away from the water because at any minute, he was going to catch one. The girls walked around finding little treasures and then they stumbled upon some poles that someone had cut and put there. They decided to build a house. So they did. They also brought me seaweed salads with a real spoon that they had found and it really grossed me out but I acted like I ate it anyways because God forbid that years down the road, I look back on this time and remember that I didn't eat the salad with the gross spoon and have guilt. I hate guilt.
So that's what's happening over on this side of the world...beetles and chickens and guilt-free consciences!