We still have a few silkworms. 28, to be exact. The largest are now 7 cm or about 2 3/4 inches long. It’s hard to make photos of silkworms exciting, but here they are:
Here is a picture of one silkworm starting its cocoon, or to put it the way we’ve been putting it around here, ‘becoming silk’.
We have cocoons in two very distinct colours. Mysterious. All of the cocoons last year began pale and became golden very quickly–within the first 24 hours. Not these. Some are pale silver-white, with a slightly green hue in some cases. This is the view from above, looking down on a tray of paper and cardboard tubes.
We have quite a few. And about 28 still to add! Luckily, I gave away about 70. Some of which have been delighting schoolchildren, apparently.
I am feeling deeply grateful to the friend who told me there was a mulberry tree behind the Japanese garden in the parklands. It turned out there were three trees, two varieties of mulberry, and one of them was trailing leaves on the ground and down at head height across a path. Begging to be pruned when I happened to pass with secateurs and a big bag, I tell you! I even ate a couple of mulberries that were almost ripe.
Local & Bespoke 