“Have you checked on the beetles?” Brett texted me.

“As a matter of fact, I have! They are really active and seem happy.” I texted back with a little happy face emoji attached.

It’s a weird conversation I thought I’d never have with my son, or with anyone for that matter. It’s also a decidedly weird regular activity for me now to check on his Dermestid beetles out in our shop. The bugs are housed in a large freezer he has modified with a heat lamp and fan to keep the critters warm. He comes to our house two or three times a week to check on the colony himself, but I am also tasked with making sure the bugs are “watered” and fed.

The colony has to grow in numbers before Brett introduces a deer skull into their environment for them to feast on. The very first time I had to feed and water the beetles myself I actually laughed out loud at the sheer absurdity of it. Last week’s blog post, I mentioned we had just had an exterminator into our home to rid us of a small infestation of silver fish. As I fried up and scrambled an egg for the beetles, the irony made me giggle.

For the last few months I have regularly fed the bugs. Opening the freezer lid, I quickly drop the egg into their midst and they immediately swarm it. Then I take the spray bottle with water that my son has humorously labeled “Beetle Juice”, and spray the cotton balls that line the bottom of the freezer. (The cotton balls act as their hideaways and a place to grow their families.).

Yesterday, my son added a deer skull into the freezer.

I am actually excited to see how the beetles are doing this morning with the skull.

Seriously.

I can’t help but hum the words to the old hymn, “All Things Bright and Beautiful” by Cecil Frances Alexander, as I prepare to check on the critters today:

All things bright and beautiful,
All creatures great and small,
All things wise and wonderful,
The Lord God made them all.

The Psalm 104, verses 24 and 25 may have inspired Mrs. Alexander to pen the words to this beautiful hymn.

“How many are your works, Lord!
    In wisdom you made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
There is the sea, vast and spacious,
    teeming with creatures beyond number—
    living things both large and small.”