I wish I was a firefly

a firefly is never glum

'Cos how can you be grumpy

When the sun shines out your bum!

as seen on a t-shirt

Dusk on a warm summer evening, and streaks of yellow/green light dart about and happy children chase and collect these flashes, putting them into glass jars to watch closely as they glow and dim, glow and dim. Called glow bugs, fireflies or lightning bugs, they are often the first insects that children really look closely at.

While shopping one day, I came across a little reminder of those summer nights and the fun my family has had chasing lightning bugs and catching them. I figured cachers might enjoy finding them still.

How to do it?? Glass jars are out, and an ammocan just wouldn’t work either. Rummaging through my cache supplies, I notice it is almost exactly the size of some keyholders I had. Gathering up a few other items, I was ready to start making the critter.

The keyholder was a hinge type made of softer plastic than the rigid keyholders with the sliding tops. I had also found some plastic coated wire leftover from our granddaughter’s birthday presents. These are used to hold the toy in the packaging and take forever to untwist and remove, especially with a 3 yr old wanting the toy… NOW!

This firefly is actually a candy container so it will need some careful preparation to get it ready to use. Chop off their heads, suck out the juice and throw the skins away…. Wait, that’s a song, what we want to do is...Twist off the head, suck out the juice and make the rest a cache... yes, that’s better. While the sticky sweet goo begins to rot my teeth, I rinse the tail thoroughly with hot water, getting it as clean as possible and completely empty. Rinse with a mild Clorox solution to rid it of food odors and let dry thoroughly.

Now to make it glow!! …Or not, I chose not, due to indecision on when it should glow and how to make that happen over the entire life of the cache. I’m sure an LED would work, but a power supply and switching would be another matter. In other words, I wanted a simple cache and not a big challenge to my limited technical abilities. However if anyone should decide to light up their own bug, I would be happy to publish your article on how it was done.

The firefly is comprised of 3 pieces, the tail section where the candy was, a body that fits like a jacket over the tail and finally the head or cap. Determining where I’ll be able to wire it to the keycase, two places look promising. The neck area just behind the head is a good place, so I just twist the wire twice and leave plenty of extra to go through the keycase. To keep the tail and jacket together, I’ll have to push a wire or two through both pieces, in addition to a little glue. The plastic covered wire will go through two pre-poked holes on each side of the tail. Be patient here, as it can be very tough to line up the wires with the holes. Using another dab of glue, twist the head on and line it up with the body. It now looks like it has 2 extra sets of legs and antenna on the bottom.

Laying it on top of the keycase, I determine where the holes need to be and poke them through the keycase with a push pin. Make sure it is positioned so that the keyholder can be latched and unlatched easily. Depending on the size wire available, the holes may need to be enlarged a bit, in this case I used a small diameter drill, twisting it by hand, to get the right size. There will be two holes at the neck area and four where the body will attach. Feed the wires through and twist each set together inside the keycase. Twist just enough to firmly hold the bug without putting too much stress on the wires. Clip off any excess and flatten as much as possible before covering each set of twisted wires with a generous glop of silicone sealer to completely cover the wires and not mound up too much.

Allow the silicone to set up, then add a log in a plastic bag and place it somewhere people will have to feel for it. There is nothing like coming across a giant bug while blindly feeling for a cache.

The coated wire and silicone sealer technique also work well with lock and locks and other containers. I have made five or six very different type caches that way. Be creative and have fun!

By catsnfish

A couple of empty-nesters who caught the caching bug not realizing it was incurable. So if we’re found in the woods waltzing with Garmins, lifting lampskirts while tying our shoe or looking for “gum” underneath benches, be sure to stay away... it’s contagious and the only temporary relief can be found in finding bison’s, ammo’s, nano’s, or passing coins and spreading travel bugs!

Publisher's Note: Catsnfish write the periodic column The Adventures of Catsnfish. Subscribe (free) to The Online Geocacher to get an email alert when a new article is published.

Comments(1):

1. GREAT

   i will be searching ALL OVER for that bug candy now! Great idea!

   Wednesday, May 05, 2010 Joel