when we were kids (jessie and myself, as christina hadn't yet made the voyage into our lovely world), we didn't have that many toys -so we entertained ourselves with what mother nature provided us. we would step on ants, and throw little twigs into a spider's web. we'd climb trees, collect interesting rocks, make bird calls, and cut worms in half -hoping against all hope that it would regenerate right before our eyes. these are all perfectly normal childhood endeavors. in fact, i bet some of you have even put ants under magnifying glasses (so cruel). seeing as we didn't have a magnifying glass, we had to amuse ourselves with stepping on them, and inventing other games. like moth soup.

the late mornings and the early evenings were the best times to collect moths. the heat wasn't so unbearable, and the moths were most active at this time of day. they would flutter from stalk to stalk of newly cut grass and be fairly easy targets. the best way to hunt down a moth was simply to drag your feet through the grass. it would knock them loose of their perch and they would flutter to a new position. at this moment, a good moth hunter would track it down.

once the moth had settled at its new position, the moth hunter would approach slowly and quietly -no longer dragging her feet. and with her shadow thrown away from the critter. and she should quickly cup the target in her two hands. now, i know moths don't have eyes, and they aren't very smart or very fast, but they seem to know when they are being hunted. so every precaution must be taken.

an experienced moth hunter could easily catch tens of twenties of moths in a single hunting expedition. which is exactly what we did. sometimes they would crawl through the gaps in our fingers and try to flutter away. sometimes we would be overzealous and accidentally mash them -that was pretty icky, even for a child's standards. but what were we to do with them once we had them in our grasp?

we made soup. yup. soup.

we had a little pumpkin bucket, like the ones mcdonalds would put their happy meals into during the halloween season. a bright orange pumpkin bucket with a mean looking face on it. we'd fill it part way with some water at the spicket and dump each moth in as it was caught. you can imagine it was pretty nasty, what with the chalky dust that moth wings are covered in. we'd stir it with a twig and watch the creature disintegrate. we kept adding to the soup day after day... and after a couple of days it would turn into a white slurry of moth soup.

we were delightfully horrified with our creation.

but alas, the days of moth soup are over. we both have very vivid memories of the white, pasty substance in a flourescent orange pumpkin bucket. and this is our tribute to moth soup.

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