This evening I was grilling up dinner when I spied a tomato plant with only one, half-eaten tomato. Looking closer it seemed that the half-eaten tomato was devoured by a green leaf. Then the common sense kicked in and I looked a bit closer. We have a huge, beautiful caterpillar happily munching on our tomatoes. My friend Rob let me know this is a Tomato Hornworm and is relatively harmless unless you count it eating all my tomatoes and flowers within one day (apparently it’s supposed to only eat the leaves). Apparently it will turn into a sphinx moth.
I quickly grabbed the camera and got some great pictures of this gigantic, yet cute, guy. The “eyes” on the top of it’s head are there to scare birds into thinking he’s a snake.
Somehow Rachel thinks it’s not safe to touch, so I told her I’d check. By now it’s likely moved on to bigger and better things… like our beefsteak tomatoes.
All I can think about is The Very hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. Maybe I should put out some chocolate cake, salami, ice cream cones, cupcakes, lollipops, pickles, Swiss cheese, watermelon, cherry pie and those other things the hungry caterpillar ate. by the way, you know you’re a father when you can recite most of a children’s book from memory on command. I can’t wait to see what this thing turns into!
All the caterpillar photos are up on Flickr. The textures and colors are awesome, and man, I wish I had a spike for a tail.
How industrious do you think you could be if your entire life depended on it? What would you do to make it possible for your whole being to transform into something more beautiful than it already is?
Peace,
+Tom
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