Lady bugs everywhere

Pooka found a surprise in her lady bug houses the other day. We officially had lady bugs. Part of this plan I will admit was to get some good bugs for the yard as well as let Pooka see their life cycle. But of course it was a great thing for her to see them grow up so quickly.

Ladybugs wandering around

The lady bugs were walking all over the inside of their little domes. Pooka loved to sit and watch them, but I told her we didn't have much in the way of food in their for them so we would need to let them go soon. 

Pooka's picture inside the dome

So the day came where I thought the weather would be nice to the lady bugs and really, I wanted to get them out of the garage. We opened the tops of dome to see through there what we could see. 

The domes at the release point

Once we were sure they would be safe outside, we took the two houses out front and released the lady bugs into the front bed. Now I would not be at all surprised if you told me we may of traumatized the silly things getting them out. The picture shows just pulling the glass off the bottom and they fly away. We couldn't get the glass off, so we took off the eye piece at the top and gave the worlds a bit of an earthquake. All the lady bugs got out of their homes and into the front bed. Pooka of course named them all, and told them to get to work saving her herbs. Then she asked when we could order more. Not today, Pooka. Not today

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. 

Christmas for Pooka

So Santa and our families have been very good to Pooka.

Not only did Pooka get her own gift certificate for the local nursery, but she also got some new seeds from Santa. I swear that was her favorite gift from Santa. Santa brought her more of her Chinese 5 color pepper seeds, some red romaine, a type of blue podded peas, a shiny purple striped eggplant and some tomato blueberries that are suppose to turn a pretty purple color. As we all know when your 6, you can't have food be normal colors. Half the fun of growing it is growing blue peas instead of green.

Seeds from Santa

Her aunt and uncle and grandparents both got her a lady bug habitat. Maybe this will help with the aphid problem we had on the milkweed last year. I suppose I should get to ordering the babies for it.

I think we will be raising lady bugs

Maybe while I am at it, I will reorder her praying mantis egg sacks. Hopefully we will have better luck with them this time.