In our quest to be the weird neighbors/friends/parents we have acquired a new...I don't know how to say it...hobby, maybe?
Oh yes, worms! We are now the proud parents of about 500 red wigglers. I swear, we are getting weirder by the minute. It's like I can dissociate from myself and watch it happen. Our poor kids. Anyway, our new little charges are here for a few reasons (besides for fodder for our kids' future counseling sessions)...the first being to aid the ladies in getting rid of kitchen scraps. Second, to provide us with some excellent fertilizer (worm poo or "castings" is amazing stuff), and third, sorry to say it, protein for the ladies.
I spent a fair amount of time finding the perfect home for the worms. I wanted something that looked moderately decent and was cheap. After searching the internet I found some great plans for a worm bin that looked cool-ish and could be made from supplies easily found around our small town (check out the "off the shelf" worm bin plans here).
After about 45 minutes of work, here is the completed bin, in its hallowed place by the kitchen table. If you're kind of grossed out by that, you're not the only one. But I'm almost over it.
Kind of UFO-ish! I dig it!
Here's how it works. First you put in a bunch of shredded paper (we used some shredded computer paper that Russell had at the cannery) then dampen it with some water. Dump in some worms. We traded a gift pack of fruit for about a 1/2 pound of red wigglers (I had to laugh at the trade...we met in an empty parking lot and did a fast exchange...it was like we were part of an underground worm cartel. And then, after we had the worms in our possession, I had the realization that we were going to have writhing, slimy WORMS in our house. I don't know why that didn't occur to me before that moment but it took me a little while to get over the initial nausea. Grant, on the other hand, was BESIDE himself with glee. He had even built his own worm bin out of a cardboard box the day before). Back to the process - add some kitchen scraps to the paper/worm mixture and cover with more damp paper. That's it. We save our food scraps throughout the day and then in the evening dig a little hole in the paper, dump it in, and then cover it up. The theory is that the worms will eat the food, poop it out and then in a few months we'll harvest all the goodness. I'll be sure to write about how THAT goes. So that's the big news around here. We're nuts. I guess that's not really news, though.
Especially considering that this is my gene pool...
That would be my Mom and sister. January 1st of this year.
Them again. And if you look up, there is snow on the hills above. MMMhmmm.
Yup. Weirdos. The whole lot of us.