The Bug Club

(Originally published July 10, 2009, Wisconsin State Journal)

Most of us adults are familiar with the phrase,"Take time to smell the roses." For kids the phrase should be, "Take time to look under rocks." And the bigger the rock the better. Because beneath every rock, there are loads of--drumroll, please--bugs.

For the past several months, my daughters have been rolling over every possible rock, log and brick they can physically manage to reveal the writhing insect world underneath. Last week I discovered one of my nice belts tethered around a hefty rock in our front yard. Bee (4 and 1/2 years) had figured out that rolling over a small boulder was a lot easier if you fashion a pulley. Together, Bee and April combined their 100 lbs of strength to heave over a boulder and mine for bugs. In fact, Bee is intent on building a bug club. This is not a club for kids, united in their love of things creepy-crawly. Rather, she is building a club for mini pests in a plastic tub, complete with a playground, teeny toys, a miniature slide, a crawling tunnel, and rocks (of course) to climb and hide under. There are no membership fees for this club, although it sounds like a very fancy hang-out for a bug.

Bee will spend long stretches of time observing ants. She will kneel in the dirt, her head bowed six inches above the earth, her posture similar to that of devotee. She will trail an ant to its destination, inching behind it as it scurries about its business. Is there an adult equivalent of this type of scholarly devotion? Yes, in the scientist, which she resembles. Her discoveries about the ways ants work and live are fresh to her -- and refreshing to me. Her bright eyes remind me of the beauty of the world's small things -- and the simple delight they can bring.


A book I skimmed recently discussed the ways small children appreciate and navigate their natural world, the ways they collect nondescript pebbles and consider them lustrous, and the ways they scavenge all manner of flora and fauna and carry them in pockets to show off later. Out in nature, or in the smallest of yards, children will set about creating little hide-outs that suit their own size. Adults, on the other hand, will tend to focus on larger territory (it's notable that the Internet has increased our territory even more), so that we tend to be scanners, to focus on vistas when we take photographs, to peruse globally. While the larger world overwhelms children, the smaller world can be under-noticed by adults. This makes me think that we should design a new bumper sticker -- courtesy of our kids' intuitive appreciation of the small beauties of the world -- to adhere next to our "Think Globally, Act Locally" bumper stickers. It would blare, "See the world. Pick up rocks." I like that idea. Sometimes it's a challenge for us adults to even NOTICE the ground underneath our busy feet. When we pay attention, our kids remind us of the value of the local -- the immediately local.

Bringing bugs into my house isn't my heart's desire, but I want to encourage Bee's exploring ways. I recently bought her an ant farm. Ironically, ant farms don't actually come with ants; you need to order the ants separately, and these are delivered in the mail. (Apparently, the 30 ants are carefully sealed and unable to escape. Postal workers take comfort.) The ant farm manufacturer recommends "harvester ants" (the ones with the giant mandibles) to live and work in the ant farm. The ants basically eat their way through the farm's nutrient-rich "gel" to create an illuminated network of tunnels. I haven't actually ordered the harvester ants yet (Ahem). In fact, I've wondered if I should bother mail-ordering ants at all.


The other night, as I drank wine and tried to converse with my neighbor, Bee and April worked at rolling over large rocks edging our neighbor's garden, ooohing and ahhhing over the critters they found. Within minutes, Bee came flying onto the deck, one fist full of what I thought was dirt. She was triumphant, shouting that she had found something amazing. She opened her palm onto the table, where my red wine sat. And there, spilling out and flaring in a black storm around my glass, were ants. Hundreds of them.


Bee had struck gold, and she wanted to share. Not one of those irate ants had stung her. Not one. It had never occurred to her that they would.