What Moth is This?

The reason I love the library book sales is that you never know what treasure you might find. The last sale, back in October, I happened across a wonderful book called Pictures and Stories from Forgotten Children's Books by Arnold Arnold. The book is out of print now, but it was from the Dover Pictorial Archive series. I have a weakness for these old stories with their pen and ink drawings and their harsh lesson stories that make no apology for attempting to scare kids straight. Marina found a wonderful story in this book called Fanny Overkind. Fanny tries very hard to be kind, but it never works out as she intends. Here is an example:

Fanny had a nett(sic) made to cover her flowers and keep the chickens away; but if she had not put the nett over her garden the plants would not have died as they did: for the chickens, and birds, were only picking off the caterpillars and bugs: that would eat the young plants. But Fanny did not know that...

I wish I had read the Fanny Overkind stories sooner. We might not have had the problems we had over the holidays. I'm thinking about that first time I saw a little white worm inching its way across the kitchen ceiling. It looked so fragile. I didn't want to kill it, so I asked hubby to put it outside (because a November chill would have been so much better for it.) I think he didn't hear me. Whatever the case, in the midst of holiday preparations, we started to notice the moths.

It was only a few at first. The cats, as inept as they are, couldn't catch them. They were too fast. I was worried about them getting into our closets and eating our clothes. Bad naturalist. I was so busy I wasn't being observant. I wasn't noticing little things, like the fact that every time I opened my baking cabinet, a moth flew out. And the fact that the bag of cornmeal I threw out had a strange stringy appearance that didn't really look moldy.

I had been stocking my baking cabinet for about a month in preparation for holiday baking. Luckily, the extra flour wasn't stored there and the flour we use was in a sealed container. Except that my son is not neat in the kitchen and has a penchant for making pancakes on Saturday morning. That's why there was flour on the shelf of the cabinet. We had created a perfect environment for mealworms. So in the midst of holiday baking, I ended up tossing half of my supplies and starting over. I found cocoons in boxes. I found nests in the corners of the shelves. It was my own little holiday horror show. I'm still checking cabinets at this point. Even though I did a thorough job of cleaning, I worry about them coming back. Not so worried anymore about killing the poor, helpless worm. I learned that lesson. On the bright side, our birds had a holiday feast and my baking cabinet is clean and organized.

You may be wondering how all this started. I was at the pet store one day looking for crickets for the anole. I couldn't find any, but I remembered that the woman who sold us the lizard said you could feed them mealworms. I had never done this before, but I figured Lizzie would enjoy the variety. Imagine my surprise when I opened the mealworm container at home and a moth flew out. It scared the bejeebers out of me--I'm pretty sure I screamed--but I thought nothing of it until I was fighting for my baking supplies. I don't think any of us even attempted to catch it.

Lizzie is back to eating only crickets and mashed bananas and I am wiser with a new life lesson from watching animals....(and I have no picture to share this time, as we have no more moths)

The smallest problem can become a big one if you don't take care of it right away.