life – Page 8 – Musings of a Musician's Wife

Perhaps writing, or blogging, is a way of processing the sharp turns in life. Perhaps it is a way to unleash the darkest depths of the soul. Perhaps it is a way to make yourself known, to shout to the world that you exist. In my case, I think this is a way for me to get my daily musings out of my head.

Lets say this starts because I felt prompted.

Today lets talk about words. Right now I feel I have so many boiling over and no one to hand them off to. I am a mommy to two crazy smart and ridiculously adorable dogs, but lets face it… not much for conversation. I am a photographer and I work until I drop. Currently I own a business, a Sunshine Moment, where I get to share my joy of photography and people with anyone who cares. I also work for Hindsdale Living Magazine, Bella Baby Photography, Sherwin Williams Paint Store, Cornerstone Photography, and Houzz.com.

I have words about my ordinary life and in a marriage with an up-and-coming rock star as my counter part I’m afraid my words are pretty lack luster. I suppose even when I am asked a question the exciting thing that jumps to mind is that my musician husband is on a crazy awesome adventure elsewhere. And what I mostly want to talk about lately is my new dog Sam.

Sam makes so many noises that he lost his voice for yesterday and today. He makes yips ring shrill and painful. I am most definitely working on getting rid of that noise completely. He also makes the whole assortment of monkey noises. Today, when I got home, I was greeted with his entire catalogue of noises, almost as if he was listing them off my making them. I leashed him up in a frenzy of fur and paws to my face and thrusted us out the door.

Tommy is the neighbor dog. The day after we got Sam he ended up at Tommy’s mercy with me shreiking along trying to catch the ravenous killing machine of a dog or my tiny teddy bear Sam before he got eaten. Haley even joined in the battle, apparently she forgot she too is terrified of the monster or was too overcome with the desire to protect me or the new little fur ball that she forgot her fear. The whole war between Sam’s life and death probably lasted only a minute or two but Sam will not ever forget it.

Today Tommy was out when we went for our potty excursion. As soon as we rounded the corner Sam spotted him and desperately tried to climb up me as he ferociously growled his raspy puppy gurgle. I obliged and picked him up to prance him past Tommy, a long way from the end of his rope, and put Sam down in hopes of seeing a pee stream. No such luck. He was more concerned with getting away from the sight of Tommy as quick as possible.

We did. Then he whizzed.

The end.

I met a caterpillar in my tomatos a couple weeks back. My first thought was… “I found her in my garden today! That’s a lot of babies…”

But them I came to understand a horrifying truth. The poor little bugger was being eaten from the inside out. These “eggs” were actually the cocoons of braconid wasps. They come to be through momma’s long, stingerlike ovipositor. She simply uses this like a syringe and inserts her eggs into and unsuspecting host such as this caterpillar. The reason why these eggs survive so easy: she also deposits a hormone that screws with the hosts immune system, leaving the eggs undetected and unharmed until they hatch and start reeking havoc on the poor creatures body. First target, the “non vital” organs. They eat all of these up then make their way through the skin to form their cocoons. By eating only the non vital organs the host is left perfectly alive and fresh until the cocoons are ready and then the hornets invade for the final feast. The host is literally eaten from the inside out because of a long, twisted course of reproduction. I think I’m supposed to think that “it’s all a part of the circle of life,” but I hate meanies, especially when they’re attacking an innocent bystander, and I hate wasps. So, when I realized this was not a reproductive display of caterpillar eggs, but, rather, a horrific reproductive method that makes way for more wasps my roommate, Jesse, and I took action. When I revisited the caterpillar it was in no better condition. It appeared that some more larva were exiting and intending on creating their nest.

Our course of action: to spray the whole parade with indoor insect killer. The caterpillar sprung to life, we had assumed it was long gone, so we quickly switched gears after all the parasitoids were off… hose it off with water.

We drenched the little guy and even wiped him off with a paper towel. We wanted to keep a close eye on him so we created an ice cream bucket home and tossed in some leaves. My evening got worse. I watched him struggle through the night until he was no longer mobile at midnight. I spent the evening performing a sort of surgery: whenever a larva poked out, I grabbed it with some tweezers and flushed it down the sink. However, the string was seemingly endless… until he died.

This small creature and incident of natural reproduction scarred me for several days. I fell in love with that beautifully green and intriguing caterpillar. I came to wonder how these hellish braconid wasps came to be. I questioned God and his creativity. Is it possible that he created them and put them on this earth to destroy these pretty caterpillars from the inside out? Or is it possible that he created the wasps and then Satan dabbled into their make up to create the gruesome destroyer of life? I suppose these are just more questions I have to leave be, maybe one day I’ll understand, in the mean time I guess I just have to trust that He knows what He’s doing up there.