If I can’t tell Spring is in the air by the weather ~ this week happens to be a typical spring day in Ohio.. rainy, chilly (April Showers bring May flowers) ~ I can certainly tell by the stats to my pages on Momma Muse.
Every spring, towards the end of March through September, I have a couple of pages which never fail to bring lots of visitors.
One of my top pages throughout these months is Homemade Hummingbird Nectar Recipe. There is also the recipes for feeding and attracting Orioles and Butterflies.
Make sure to see the baby hummingbird in a nest – it’s amazing how tiny they are!
Fun Spring Activity to do with the kids (or just yourself).
Last year, we purchased a few praying mantis egg cases. We’ve done this in the past, but this year instead of putting them right out into the yard, we decided to hatch them in an aquarium. Very simple to do, you’ll need an aquarium or other enclosure (maybe a mesh one, similar to a butterfly house). Our aquarium has a screen lid. We put a few branches inside and attached the egg cases to the branches, either just sliding them onto one or bracing it gently.
We kept watch over it until it finally had several hundred (yes, hundreds!) of tiny mantis babies… at which time we set the aquarium in the grass on it’s side, and took the lid mostly off. Enough so the young praying mantis could easily escape, but not so much a bird would be interested too quickly in jumping in for a snack.
Periodically through the summer we’d see a mantis here or there… but towards the end of summer we did see a couple of nicely sized ones.
Praying Mantis are good for your garden and flowers. They like to eat the icky buggies who like chomping on your pretty flowers. They also eat mosquitoes… and goodness knows we’ve had our fair share of them around here. Last year wasn’t so bad… wonder if I should get some more egg cases…
Places to get Praying Mantis Egg Cases:
Insect Lore – here, you can get just one case, along with many other types of insects. Great place to get stuff for homeschooling, or just to supplement those young, sponge-like minds!
We just received caterpillars from them for our Butterfly house. They are growing so big! I also want to get one of the Spiderweb frames for the garden.
Planet Natural is where I ordered Praying Mantis egg cases from last year.
Note to add: Gardening Zone has great prices on Mantis Egg Cases ~ But be sure to check shipping costs before you submit your order.
