Most of my gear is here! In addition to covering up, I took this picture on a potato, so here’s what you’re looking at:

• Right, on top of box, clear: graduated cylinders

• On top of box, metallic: scale

• On top of box, green plastic: bucket sifters

• Center, background, white plastic: trays the project will expand into

• Center, foreground, red and black: ur tct (them-crush-thursday)

• Left, on top of table, black plastic: take-out containers that currently house the project, 1/3 of which is pictured.

• Left, orange: Uncle Ben’s packets - now that’s another project for another time.

Not pictured: My records where I keep track of everything. Current rate of survival of larvae to adulthood: about 92%. Current reproduction rate: unknown, but I’m already seeing hundreds of offspring in containers that got laid in for <4 weeks; in another 2 weeks the bucket sifters and scale will help me find out more accurately.

Currently everything has cost about $450. In about a week, ur tct will be buying $250 worth of samples from several different live feed companies. If my carpentry-inclined moist Maoist friend hasn’t built me a rack by then I will go by the hardware store and cobble one together myself. I have enough room for maybe 2 or 3 of these racks in my home. In about 1 month I’ll have an idea of when I will outgrow my living space, and how much I will be producing at that time.

This post is dedicated to the first 800 very hungry caterpillars larvae, all of whom got to live a better life than they would have in the wild.