It's that time of the year again

Newborn silkworms;

Yes, it's true. I didn't even finish telling the story of last year's silkworm raising and silk reeling and the 2016 silkworms are here already. But that's what happens when you want to get a farm to produce, wool, flax, silk, write about that, make a study about portuguese wool, run a shop and also have a baby by the way.

I was planning making a bunch of posts at once and finishing the story while the eggs were kept in a dark, cool place as to prevent their unwanted hatching, but Nature is the big boss and a few days after the black mulberry trees got their new leaves, most of the silkworms decided to hatch while still in the envelopes.
One of the times we opened it to check everything was ok, we found dozens of silkworms laying around. My initial reaction was to think this year's production was gone and there's not going to be any silk for anyone, but since I have a tendency to stare at spilled milk, or, in this case, at premature silkworms, I noticed that most of them were alive and hanging around, waiting to be put in a more comfortable place and fed.

After performing a swift rescue operation and waiting out a few days, I guess most of them survived and, luckily, many of the eggs hadn't hatched yet.
Lesson learned.

Today, the oldest are 10 days old (here they are, wondering where their food is) and a couple of dozen was born about yesterday, so I managed to photograph them since the beginning, this year.
 

Newborn silkworms;

10 days old silkworms;

Silkworms of 10 days old side-by-side with others that hatched more recently;