Bugs everywhere

Well, timing seems to hate me this year. I don't know if it is me working or all the kids stuff that has thrown me off, but it seems like every day I am either running behind or I have forgotten something. The bugs are one such item.

If you will remember Pooka got 2 lady bug lands for Christmas.  I finally remembered to order them at the end of April. I made a point to try and order at that time because I had promised Pooka we would try mantises again.

Well the weekend they showed up,we had family in town. As a result, I forgot to get pictures of just about anything. I was more concerned about getting the containers of bugs off my kitchen table and into their homes. I told myself "oh, we will get pictures of that later." Later was a couple of weeks later. (It has been a weird year).

Lady bug land is occupied

By the time I finally got pictures, this is what they look like. You can see on the little road one of the lady bug larva. It was getting ready to go into its pupa.

Larva going into it's pupa 

In the second house I was able to get a much better picture of these guys making their pupa, which is essentially like their sleeping bag so they can form into actual lady bugs. Pooka is excited to have real lady bugs in her garden. I guess that means we need a garden for them to live in. 

Lets hope this works better

We also got another egg sack of mantises. I have yet to find the bottom for the praying mantis house, so for right now the egg sack is sitting in the container it came in house. I am hoping as I excavate the garage from the gardening supplies, it will appear. This folks is what happens when you kinda throw all the garden supplies in the garage at the last minute instead of dealing with they properly in the fall.