So, you have some wet areas on your property...my wife would like that, as there are certain plants she likes but we can't grow them. It sounds like you have a terrarium of some kind that you can watch the caterpillars go through their change into butterflies? That is interesting-never done that.
When I lived in Japan as a kid, they had some kind of enormous pale caterpillars that would inundate the environment...I thought they were cicada caterpillars, because they have a lot of cicadas there (which were deafening and all over the place) but...I found out they don't have caterpillars. They kind of looked like silkworms, they were very big and fat. On the base, we had large concrete cisterns all over the place (Probably from WWII to use for fighting fires from American air raids) that held rainwater or they were filled manually with water, I don't know. They were square, stuck up a few feet out of the ground, and went down perhaps ten feet, and filled with what appeared to be polluted water. It always looked black. They were open on top and covered with chain link fence, probably to keep kids like me from falling in. However, we would go on top of them and jump up and down, using the chain linked fence as a trampoline! Didn't even cross our minds it might give way!
But, there were times of the year they were absolutely carpeted with those huge, disgusting, waterlogged corpses of those pale caterpillars! You would think the concept of having the chain link give way, plunging you into that disgusting water that was covered completely with those caterpillars would be enough to keep you off of them, but...no. Typical kid short-sightedness!
I have a standard quarter acre lot in a "ranch land" neighborhood, but we have our property completely fenced in, and my wife has turned it into a secluded paradise for me!
The shed was there when we bought the house, solidly built with a concrete foundation and a single unauthorized power wire sent to it underground by the previous owner that was never brought up to code, but I don't think I will ever address that. I built the three pergolas nearly forty years ago now (only two are visible) and they are still holding up, especially the one with my beloved hammock in it. (I also put a hammock in the shed, but I was out there drinking moonshine one night, and realized how dangerous that small hammock is to get in and out of! I had it custom made so it would fit in there, but...when you reduce its size, it becomes more unstable. It is about four feet off the hard concrete floor, and I realized, after having about half a mason jar of that moonshine, that I was taking my life in my hands...if I fell asleep and fell out of it to that concrete floor, I think that will be the end of me!
A couple of years back, the fence was somewhat in disrepair, and as everyone knows, replacing a fence is big money. My wife suggested we take it down and not put another one up, but I said absolutely not. I would use my own money saved to build a new one. I cannot imagine having an open backyard in a neighborhood. My wife understood, and we put up another fence. I just spent about four hours yesterday trying to fix the double doors to the back yard, as they were out of alignment, would not close, and the bunnies in the neighborhood could pass freely underneath.
We had new neighbors move in behind us a few years ago, and they put in couches and strings of extraordinarily bright lights right on the other side of the fence near my hammock. (you can see it in the background) When they turned on those lights (there are about twenty of them, which are the non-frosted, clear, white lights with the exposed filaments that are brilliant, each one about 100 watts) it lit up the entire neighborhood for three houses in every direction as well as all the trees and everything as if there were giant spotlights. I usually have my window shades up and the windows open in the summer, and it lit up the entire bedroom as if car headlights were shining in. They would leave them on all night long, and it began to make me angry, and my mind began to think of things to do about those lights, none of them good or neighborly, and which could have landed me in jail.
Finally, I picked a bag of grapes from the vines the grow above my hammock, and brought them over (as a peace offering!) to ask if they could turn out the lights when they weren't using them. They have been great about it, and now, if they are having guests or something, they do rarely turn them on. I was so grateful they were so gracious (I don't think they had any idea what the lights were like to others) because I simply could not enjoy the night out there. My joy in life (besides my wife...:) is that backyard, that shed, that birdfeeder, that landscaping, and that hammock. I smoke a pipe occasionally, and one of the best things is to go out there for a few hours as the sun goes down, and the sky changes from blue, to lilac, to violet, to indigo, and then to black. When the light is violet and the sun has not been down that long, all the tree branches and everything else is silhouetted in black. It is beautiful. During June and July, I see fireflies come out, which still even at my age, manage to evoke the emotions of childhood. I can puff on that pipe and think.
This is what it looked like last night as I lay in my hammock which faces Southwest:
I can see the stars appear, and if it is windy, I can hear the waves of wind advancing towards me in the dark through the boughs of the neighborhood trees. It reminds of the ocean, which I miss.
With my job that I just retired from after nearly forty years at one place that was a very stressful, deadline filled, patient care job, that backyard has saved me by reducing my stress. My one regret is I cannot bring my cats outside anymore, since we keep them strictly inside. But my cats in the past (when dogs and cats often had the run of the neighborhood) used to jump up and lay on top of me as I relaxed in my hammock. I miss that.
If or when the time comes I can no longer live here in this small piece of paradise, I will miss that so much my heart will ache.