Back to School and into your Cocoon!

An up and coming silkworm spinning the support silk for his cocoon

    The end of August and the beginning of September and the teenagers at my house are back to school, college, and into their cocoons.  The teenage silkworms are spinning their cocoons and I am delighted!  It signals the end of feeding their truly bottomless gullets three times or so a day.  After having raised them for years I find that I am happiest when raising a small brood of say 40 or less.  Of course one has to start with a small number of eggs and sometimes I get excited and forget, but not this time. 

And like an astronaut it does not matter which way seems to be up.  The cocoon hammock must support the cocoon completely.

    It is really amazing to watch the creation of the cocoon.  first there is an intricate and strong hammock or cradle that is spun before the actual hard core cocoon.  This serves to secure the cocoon in place so that it does not roll away, get plucked up (unless you work really hard), or blown away by winds less strong than our recent Irene.   

Inside his hammock of silk the spinning of the cocoon begins.  

    After the cocoon hammock/support structure is spun, the silkworm will proceed and create the safe and dry womb of its upcoming metamorphosis, the cocoon.

    Looking carefully the shape of the cocoon appears.  The silkworm will spin from the outside in.

Often I wonder if Chinese acrobats took their inspiration from the silkworm

    They keep spinning away; round and round and round.  If they spun their silk in a straight line a single amazingly fine filament would be 4 football fields long. 
    When they are done the silkworms will have spun a solid cocoon where inside they will begin their transformation into a silk moth.   

    This is not a chronological telling.  Since it is a cycle and therefore a life circle coming in at any stage is not necessarily a bad thing.  I will most likely tell a story next and for that purpose we must start with a cocoon. Until next time... if you are a silkworm... eat your mulberry leaves!  If you are human... eat your veggies! :)

Mama Silkworm