This morning I put on a pot of water to boil. I carefully peeled the first cocoon from the dried leaf surrounding it. When the water started a rolling boil I turned down the heat just a little bit. Then I dropped the cocoon in. In order to get the silk from the cocoon you must …
There were only three survivors of our original 5. One ended up in the compost by accident. Another perished while at Jeff’s. But today we actually have two cocoons and one caterpillar. We are not totally sure where this project is going and what the next steps are, but how exciting its been to see …
We have four thriving silkworms (two pictured above) . It would have been five, but unfortunately I think one ended up in the compost pile a couple evenings ago when I was cleaning their container. Huck and I triple counted but I couldn’t find the fifth. In any case the survivors are doing well on …
Just one day after my lament that all caterpillars were gone I found this one crawling on a stem! And yesterday when we opened the container we counted FIVE live ones!
Husk–my collaboration with Jeff Hutchison–is working on a new project. It involves the Samia cynthia, otherwise known as the Ailanthus Silkworm. This particular silkworm feeds on a diet of Ailanthus leaves. We are thinking about raising Samia cynthia to help us transform the Ailanthus tree, which is considered a weed tree, into something useful and desirable. …