Throwback Thursday: Remember That Hickory Horned Devil?

I knew it would be a mistake not to write about these photos when I uploaded them. September being what it is, I never found the time. My good readers will recall that much of the summer of 2022 was spent fussing over one enormous worm, protected by a fine mesh sleeve on my open-grown persimmon tree: the HICKORY HORNED DEVIL!! 

I think everybody overloaded on HH Devil last summer, so it's really fun to go back and see them now, when these huge caterpillars aren't even a gleam in their parents' compound eyes. 

Let's shoot back to September, when the orange-striped oakworms were defoliating my beloved little mailbox oak. (They're not gonna do that again! It was TOTAL.)

And I discovered brown-eyed Susans Rudbeckia triloba--blooming long after the classic black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta, is done--on a roadside bank--Lawd, how beautiful!

and the Conoclinium coelestinum (Mistflower, wild ageratum) was in full bloom in the orchard.

There's about 3x as much this year, thanks to intelligent mowing! I absolutely adore this spreading native perennial. It can just spread all over the clearing at the orchard's end, as far as I'm concerned. Butterflies and bees love it, and so do I. 

It was September 2, and I found the first wild persimmon on the ground, and it was sweet and edible!

Something not sweet nor edible: the gargantuan frass (poop) of a Very Large Caterpillar.

By Sept. 3, it was very, very  big, as big as it was going to get. 

Click on the photo to enjoy its black silk stockings, and the way the claspers wrap around the twig. 

It feels like a cool, velvety hotdog to hold. 

Sept. 3, Shila came out to photograph this wonder. Don't miss the worm...it's right in front of her phone lens, hanging upside down. Huge. YOOOOGE.

I can't span it with my hand. It's 6 3/4" long. 

The worm had become so used to being photographed and moved this way and that, that I had trouble getting it to show me its Ray-Bans any more. 

I literally had to tickle the tubular being into displaying its terrifying false eyes.

More stockings...the caterpillar clings like its life depends on it, and indeed it does. Being so huge and heavy, a fall from high in a tree would spell death; it'd split like a ripe melon. 

We aren't going to let it fall. It's cushioned in its parasitic wasp-proof mesh sleeve, anyway. 

And the custodian comes every few days to empty out handfuls of its frass to keep things 

nice and clean. 

Absolutely fantastic blue. I have a Specialized bike helmet exactly this color. 

Yes, we'd become very fond of our terrifying but utterly harmless Devil, 

and I don't think it minded us one bit. 

Changes soon to come for this creature! I've saved these last few posts from September and October 2022 until I knew what would become of our colorful, horned friend. Stay tuned...

Hickory Horned Devil: Shedding Into Beauty

 When we left the Hickory Horned Devil, it was preparing to molt, hanging limp, then pulsing and extending its front half. I was in a tizzy because I had to take Curtis to the vet to get his staples out after surgery, and I couldn't be there for its last molt as a caterpillar. Dang it! Priorities. I did, however, get to come home that afternoon to a changed beast.

No, not Curtis. The worm. Well, Curtis was happy without the staples in his neck and brisket. 

Aug 24 4:43pm LOOK WHAT IT DID

Morning August 26. Hoooo Weeee!!

I was SO excited to see the transformation. All my worry about the anorexia and dull coloration dissipates as I see what the caterpillar was working up to. It didn't eat for 2 1/2 days while it was preparing to molt, and that coincided with my taking it inside, so of course I concluded that I'd done something dumb and ruined everything. That's how it goes, every time, for the first-time helicopter HHD mom. 

I'm an HHHD mom.

26 August 2022. In this video I'm showing you how the "devil eyes" work. The caterpillar really only displays them under duress, when it's frightened and thinks it needs to scare someone back. They're just square black spots on the caterpillar's nape, or thorax I guess. And the worm can sort of flex to display them when necessary, by tucking its head down against its underside. That move expands the nape, reveals the Ray Bans, and also deploys the scary horns, which don't

hurt at all, and have no poison in them. All for show. 

Here's the new sleeve I deployed on 26 August. I ordered it from raisingbutterflies.org

It's the biggest one they make, a habitat fit for the King of Caterpillars, the Regal Moth's larva.

It's so big that I never had to move the caterpillar for its whole time inside. With smaller sleeves, you have to move them to a fresh branch when the worm eats all the leaves inside. You want to shake the branch you're about to enclose quite hard before you sleeve it, to make sure you've got all the stinkbugs and spiders off it. Then you run the sleeve over the branch and tie it very tightly and securely at both ends. You can't tie it too tightly, or run the cord around the closure too many times. Things get in. Things get out, otherwise.

The beauty of the sleeve is that the caterpillar is outdoors, exposed to sun, rain, wind and changing temperatures, just as it would be in nature. For monarchs, at least, this is VITAL to their picking up navigational skills. Shockingly, monarchs raised inside a house don't know how to get to Mexico, apparently. What a thought--that in trying to help them we could be hampering them, keeping them from fulfilling their destiny. So you've got to raise them outdoors, and sleeves are the way to go. 

The only difference in sleeve raising and wild life, for the caterpillar, is that nothing can kill it.

I loved all the stages of the HHD, but I have to say I found this newly shed fifth instar caterpillar the most beautiful of all. I loved its proportions--still with ridiculously long horns and prolegs; gorgeous shades of beige and brown, set off by all that orange red bling. 

Aug 25 7 pm New 5th Instar Molt coloration--maybe my favorite! He finally started eating again that evening. Whew!! Had not eaten since I took him in on the 23rd! I was worried. But it was just him getting ready to molt. I have to say the worry was worth it.

26 August 11 AM, I got a good shot of the gripperdoodle off the back of the worm. It's basically constructed like an oven mitt with Velcro tips. It clamps onto the branch like a vise, and that worm is NOT going to fall while the gripperdoodle is engaged. Yes that is a Zick neologism and yes you may use it. As I age and am unable to come up with the words I want, I spontaneously invent them. Often they're better than the word I was searching for; just ask my kids.  Kind of a natural history Casey Stengel at this stage of my life.

The correct term for the gripperdoodle would be  "modified anal prolegs" but what fun is that? And also gross. Come to think of it I wish I'd figured out where the frass comes out. Inside/behind the gripperdoodle? Does it have to release the oven mitt to take a sh-t? Darn! Wish I'd poked around to better understand this remarkable naughty bit.

By 26 August, 7:20 pm, the caterpillar was turning pale before my eyes, especially along the dorsum. 

26 aug 720 pm

In the sunlight, I could see some green creeping into the bronzy brown it had before.

There's a Curtis bomb in this photo. Not an accident. He tries to get in the frame just like Chet did.

And wait--is that turquoise coming into the foreparts?? Is this thing changing color before my eyes, like an octopus? Why not? In the Devil World, anything is possible. 

You're just too good to be true

Can't take my eyes off of you

You'd be like heaven to touch

I want to hold you so much

Well, that last part, not so much.

A Zickefoose Wedding

Of all the rituals we humans carry out, weddings, I think, are the loveliest. Weddings are about promise and hope, about looking forward and believing the best of each other. Weddings celebrate the leap of faith we take when we mingle our fortunes with those of another, for better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health.

Holly and Josh, July 2, 2017

It's no small thing, this making of promises, and we assemble everyone we love around us to witness as we put on ritual costumes and gather ourselves for the big leap. When I'm sitting in a wedding crowd, I scan the people around me as the vows are said, wondering what thoughts are rushing through their minds. For no one can hear two young people take those vows and not think about how those weighty, until-death-do-us-part promises have manifested, or will manifest, in their own lives. I find the whole thing fascinating, bemusing, affecting. But if I ever was, I'm not a wedding weeper now. I just settle back and dig the scene, the slight individual variations on this constant theme of everlasting promise and hope.

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My beloved brother Bob Zickefoose and his wife Bonnie were celebrating the union of their daughter Holly with Josh this magical day at the Irvine Estate and House Mountain Inn in Lexington, Virginia. What a place to hold a wedding!! The day was soft and warm, the evening was deliriously cool, dry and beautiful, and a fresh breeze was blowing across the patio and dance floor.

The view went on and on. 

There was no place else you'd want to be, and that's saying something.

All afternoon, I had the immense privilege of watching my three nieces and nephews-in-law wrangle their adorable babies. I was humbled and nostalgic as I witnessed their everyday, every-moment feats of good parenting. To be a toddler's parent is to subjugate oneself to the needs of an often irrational, always adorable small small human.  Here, Christy with Ben.

Josh (my niece Katie's husband) with Simon. 

Melting yet?

Cate (Ben's big sister) watches Max and Will break-dancing, flinging their legs around and under their anchoring hands in a mad buzz-saw circle. Cate, I'm with ya, girl. No doin' the coffee grinder for me, hell to the nope. 

Liam shows how you dance with a baby in a convenient sling. 

I absolutely adore this shot, for its unposed beauty, for the interaction between my niece Courtney and her sweet Charlie; Charlie's dad Tyler leaning in; the smile passing between Cam and Courtney's wee daughter Amy; the smile on my niece Clare's face.  Wow. Hold an iPhone up over your head so you can't even see what you're getting, and see what you get. Sometimes you get a painting.

My sister Nancy boogies with Claire, Cate and Amy. Nancy was not ready to go back to the hotel at 10:30 pm. I love that about her, love watching her get those little girls shaking. 

There were little girls in dresses everywhere I looked. That alone would get me up that mountain.

There would be a few tears, but only a few. There was too much fun to be had!

Cate (Christy and Will's wee girleen) was being noncompliant; not exactly bad but not real good; setting off on her own despite her parents' spoken admonitions. I followed, just to be safe. Finally she turned around to head back to her folks and gave me my favorite shot of the trip.  Fairies are real!!

Yep, I'm bad. But nobody minds. I'm good at it.

 My date for the event was tall, blonde and handsome. I'd waited 17 years for him.

He was worth the wait.

Come over here and let me get your eyes against that smoky Blue Ridge. O beautiful boy!

I could hear the Seldom Scene's sweet tenor harmonies in my head. Blue Ridge...Do you call to all your children like you've been calling me? Blue Ridge...Why are you calling me home?

Ahh, now that makes me weep. Do click on the link. Listen to Jonathan Edwards' and John Duffy's voices fly across the mountains! Let it keep playing for "Wait a Minute." Oh my gosh. Good bluegrass...gets me in the rootsy feels.

Because I am the Science Chimp, it was only  a few minutes before I was summoned in to identify a large moth that had found its way into the dining hall. 

Polyphemus! Huge batty miracle of the Appalachian night. Oh!

I carried it outside--it was like carrying a cool, mechanically flapping bird--and released it. After a few false starts, it warmed its flying muscles sufficiently to rise into the air and circle against the Blue Ridge landscape during the wedding ceremony! Something beautiful, released and joyous. No metaphors there, nope.

And sharp-eyed Max found the first regal moth I'd ever seen under a railing outside, and ran to find me. ZOMG. The little child shall lead us. Woot!!! Bear in mind this thing is about 5" long. 

Well, to be precise, I'd seen a regal moth, but not wearing this fabulous King Clown outfit.

You may recall its weiner-sized caterpillar, the Hickory Horned Devil, from a previous blogpost. 

Click on that link, and you'll get the whole life story of the regal moth, as well as a 2010 vintage pic of the family pickin' pawpaws! It's a classic.

Ooga booga booga! his only defense

Being Science Chimp 1 and Science Chimp 2, Liam and I had to sneak off before dinner and find some wild food. 

Around the edge of the property, wineberries (Rubus phoenicolasius), native to Asia, were competing with native black raspberries (above) for space, and mostly winning.

Exotic or not, the wineberries were absolutely delicious.

Seeing my son in dress clothes slowly reaching through the thorny tangle for berries to feed his skirt-bound mama did a lot for me. Let me just say that skirts and dresses are USELESS. You can't do anything in them. Ugh. I will wear them for a few hours when required. Then it's back to the sturdy boots, pants and socks, which take me through the vegetation unscratched.

These things are GOOD!! Somebody said he looks like Malfoy here. Well he may, but there's not a cruel or evil bone in this boy's body.

Wineberries: for better or for worse, they're definitely winning here. We ate them all ourselves. Yep, we did. And we didn't feel guilty, well not very, because the food we were about to get was so darned delicious. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were here not for giant moths, delicious food, or dancing fairies. We were here for Holly and Josh's wedding!

My brother Bob Zickefoose emerges with the bride.

And Josh walks her back into the hall. Everything is changed from this day forward.

And just before that magic moment and a lovely ceremony, Bob's son Aaron and son-in-law Josh K. played and sang some Beatles and Chet Atkins tunes. It was home-made music and it was wonderful to hear "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" and "I'll Follow the Sun" in this setting. And then my brother Bob sang a special song for the couple. I believe he borrowed the voice of an angel for the occasion. My updated iPhone always crashes now when I launch the Video function, so I missed the intro.

Bob and our sister Dancin' Nancy. 

Bob played the 1964 vintage Guild he bought when he was Liam's age. It's the only guitar he's ever owned, the only one he says he's ever needed. The fretboard is deeply grooved with use. Three stout screws and some glue hold the long-broken head together. Five more screws keep the bridge one with the guitar's cracked body. But it still keeps true. And true is what my brother is, in word, voice and deed. 

Father-daughter dance.

Late night cousin dances

The five Zickefooses. Barbara, Nancy, Micky, Bob, and me. How lucky can you get, to have such people in your corner?

I made this post for my family, but for you, too, because it was all too beautiful not to share. Here's to new beginnings and children well-raised!