Anjali and insects

IT has long been known that Anjaoli is a whizz with Animals. From pony riding to cuddling and wanting to toush all the dogs in the neighbourhood.

 

Now, her animal loving skills have extended to insects. For about half the journey from Buzau to the delta - around 2 hours, She had a ladybug in her hand. It came out of some grapes that tata Sile picked out of a garden where we had stopped for a stretch, and stayed on Anjali's hands (and pant leg and hair) for the whole time. It only flew away when we left the car

 

On the trek up the mountains (8 or 9 hours, which Anjali walked the whole of by herself), she developed a new kind of insect affinity. The affinity to grasshoppers. For about half the trek, she carried a grasshopper of one kind or another in her fingers, leffting go when she needed the use of her hands to climb and picking one back again when she got down. Ofcourse, they hopped off when husband tried to carry them, or whenm Sophia trid to carry them, but stayed on for minutes at a stretch with Anjali. She even did tricjs with them, making them climb from one hand to another.

 

"Let it fly Anjali", I said, at a point

 

"Mummy. Grasshoppers dont fly. They hop. See their hind legs, they push on their hind legs and hop"

 

"You are too much of a city girl", says husband  smugly

 

Ofcourse I know that grasshoppers walked, or hopped or wahtever.  But I had been on the mountain for about 5 hours.

 

Later husband picked up another grasshopper for us to examine

 

"It is injured!" I exclaimed "It has only one wing!"

 

"Not wing mummy! Thats a leg!", corrected Anjali patiently. She showed me her grasshopper "See when I make it move, it stretches the leg. its a leg"

 

Turns out that the grasshopper was not wounded but simply another species. We found more of them

 

Anjali is well suited to be a farmer. She says that she wants to be have a grass patch in her farm for grasshoppers.

 

I am not sure, but arent they considered pests? I didnt tell her that though.

 

Anyway, she is well suited for vegetable husbandry, or whatever that is called. Yesterday, we caught her seamlessly transferring a bee from one flower to another.