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April 20, 2006
Grasshoppers
Since we took Tim down to the manmade lake near Pontcharra yesterday, where he saw a couple of tiny frogs, his brain's been hopping. Yesterday Mom had to sew plastic bags onto wire loops at the end of bamboo poles. One for each child, though Diane's not yet returned from up north.
Today at lunch, Tim explained to his grandmother he needed her to gather 50 fat grasshoppers per child. (We have not yet prayed for a plague of locusts, and are not sure where we're going to get 150 fat grasshoppers this time of year.) He's planning to use sewing thread to tie a grasshopper at a time to each pole. The frogs will go after the fat grasshoppers, and as they do, the children will be able to scoop them into the plastic bags.
Next they'll transfer the frogs to three plastic pop bottles Tim has clipped for the occasion. He says the bottles will be too tall for the frogs to jump out, but that I'll nevertheless have to take a large bucket with a lid to hold the overflow as the bottles are filled with frogs.
Emma hadn't gone to the lake. She asked me what size the frogs were. She'd been talking to Tim, and had gotten the impression each frog was about the size of a basketball.
Both were convinced I should prepare by buying a large aquarium and filling it with the sort of things frogs would like to have around. Sticks and water and lilypads and so forth. They'll be angry and suspect me of stalling when they get home for their snack.
Posted by Mark at April 20, 2006 02:58 PM
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