Greta, Josie, and I went for a nature walk along the Heritage Rail Trail last weekend and looked for anything that might be fun for a project down the road. Josie and Greta were all about finding the perfect stick for making a wand and saving colorful rocks. And I was on the lookout for a spider body to use with my porcupine quills for a unique porcupine spider. Boy, I didn't walk away disappointed.
When we came across the dried out fruit pod from an American Chestnut, we at first thought it was the furry remains of a dead animal. The exterior was extremely spiny, but the interior was velvety. The size of the pod we found was roughly 3 or 4 inches in diameter, which seemed suspiciously large enough to be the shell of a formerly living organism. I eventually got brave enough to do more than just poke the pod with a stick and realized it probably wasn't a carcass. My research online, instead, showed me exactly what I had found:
And here are a few other things I found for future projects/spiders. Perhaps you already have some idea what I'll be using them for.
Materials: American chestnut fruit pod; porcupine quills; black, brass, and amber seed beads; silver wire
