Cocoon

Rand and I have been staring at our yard for a solid week. We just seeded Bermuda because the grass in our yard right now is really patchy. We have lots of areas of just dirt as evidenced by Easton's bum in a previous post. :) So we keep going out and just staring at the yard trying to will it to sprout. Being a native Northwest girl, I know what grass should look like. Little seeds become delicate little blades of grass and soon flourish into a dark green, lush, soft lawn. That's what we were looking for...little blades. After 9 days we just assumed maybe it wasn't going to take....that was until we realized that weedy grass for the desert doesn't grow like that. Duh. The sun would eat it alive. Anyway, that is so not the point.
While we were looking at all our new little bunches of sprawling Bermuda, I saw this weird brown thing sort of half in, half out of a hole in the dirt. Rand leaned over and touched it and it wiggled and we screamed and jumped back. :) I got a shovel and a cup and Rand captured it. We had no idea what the heck it was. Once we got past the gross factor we figured it was some sort of cocoon, but how did it get on the ground there?
Turns out Tomato Horn Worms (those super big green caterpillars) actually bury themselves in the dirt for the winter and then emerge in the spring and hatch into big ol' moths.
If he isn't dead from our prodding, we are hoping to watch it hatch. I'm still pretty grossed out by it, but the boys are pretty fascinated.
ewww