Caterpillar Crossings and Tiny Frogs

A VERY TINY AND NEW BABY FROG JUST FINDING HIS LEGS
The dining room has become a metamorphic wonder haven. There are embryonic ducks cosied up in a little Japanimation-style incubator, tiny black tadpoles with legs beginning to hop out of their soupy pond water up onto the sides of their plastic candy box home, and as of yesterday, Red Admiral Butterfly catterpillars crawling on fresh nettle leaves in a pop-up net cylinder we had purchased a couple years ago for store-bought caterpillars.
The children and I were walking through the park yesterday when Dinosaurman (being the gentle stop-and-notice-the-caterpillars kind of super hero he is), noticed about three black caterpillars crossing the sidewalk. The rest of us had passed right by without seeing them. I stopped to come back and look at his request, (a bit reluctantly as we were already late), and also found myself fascinated by the big black spiny crawlers. After making a comment that if we could find out what kind of food they ate we could take them home, we began to look through the plants along the path to see which ones might bear the tell-tale caterpillar munching holes. I noticed a drift of stinging nettle that looked well munched and when my eyes focused, I saw the dark patches between the leaves actually were more caterpillars hiding amongst the leaves. First two, no three, FOUR of them! And so on until up over thirty. We had found a Red Admiral Caterpillar feasting ground! 'Twas all so very exciting and yes, all those little black dots decorating the plants and ground were little caterpillar droppings. They were definitely eating well. I happened to have a plastic grocery bag with me that seemed suitable for caterpillar transport so on the way back home I wrapped up my hand several times in a spare jumper we had brought and after several unsuccessful attempts reaching gingerly through the nettles, I finally managed to get 3 into the bag along with a few stalks of their dinner. Living and grazing upon stinging nettle definitely has protective benefits. Every time I would reach for one, it would curl up in a ball and drop down under the protection of the netttle stalks where even with my wrapped up hand I didn't dare to go.
So...life is teeming in the dining room, waking has faded to dreaming in the upstairs room where sweaty heads lie sleeping and I am off to Tae Bo before I lay my head down also.