chicken feathers

uninvited

Our worms have been happily munching away, causing no trouble at all.  They have some really annoying guests, however, that have worn out their welcome.

Fruit flies.  Hoards of them.  For some reason they like to congregate on the living room window, behind the curtains.  They aren't really pesky, they just have a high gross factor - especially when there are literally hundreds crawling all over your window. 

So, the worms got the boot.  They are now outside - still in their bin - but away from our living area.  The fruit flies are gone (I vacuumed up all window residents) and the worms are still eating and pooping away.  It's better for everyone this way.  What we'll do when the really hot weather hits, I don't know.  Any ideas?

harvest time

It's been three months since we began our quest to secure our nomination for "neighborhood nutjobs."  Time to move in for the kill.  An outdoor worm casting harvest.

First we laid out our finest white linen - a plastic table cloth.
 
Then we brought out the guests of honor...the worms.

We did not empty the bin at any point in the three months.  We were adding a big handful of food every 3 or 4 days plus filling the bin with shredded paper once a month or so.  The bin was really heavy and amazingly empty!

When I lifted the top bin off, I discovered part of the reason it was so heavy...

It was filled with about 6 inches of vermi-tea!  Scones anyone?  That makes me want to vomit just to write that.  While the worm bin has been practically odor free, that liquid was pretty vile.  There were also a hundred or so worms squiggling around in there.  Ghaaacck, it still gives me the heebee-jeebies!  We drained the tea into the watering can and fertilized the plants along the side of the house.  It's been about two weeks and they're growing great...it didn't do any damage, that's for sure.  As for all the worms that were swimming around - they became a protein treat for the chickens.  I felt very mean as I watched them being pecked to death.  But, well, I watched.  And had a thought about the beautiful golden yolks that would follow.  Am I a farm girl now?

Probably not.

After the tea was poured and the treats distributed, it was time to move onto the main event - bobbing for worms.

I dumped all the gook out onto the plastic, tied some plastic bags around Grant, Anna, and my hands and we just dug in.  I separated the big pile into 6 smaller piles.  In my worm book it said you could just scrape the castings off the top of each little pile and the worms would keep moving down, away from the light.  Whatever.  It was a layered mess of earthy black goodness and stinky food-like sludge.  I don't know how one would ensure that it was mostly earthy black goodness.  If you stop feeding the worms a few weeks before harvesting, wouldn't the worms die?  I don't know.  What I do know was that I was thanking my lucky stars I wasn't pregnant because as some of those nasty layers hit open air, it was pretty rank.  I didn't loose my lunch but had my stomach been just a hair queasy my cookies would have been tossed for sure.

Ew.

The kids didn't share my aversion to this process.  They thought it was fantastic.  Digging through muck to find worms ranks right up there with...well...digging through muck to find worms.  I do have to say that it was kind of cool when you found a big pile of worms hiding somewhere.  Sort of like popping a huge zit.  It's nasty but strangely satisfying.  Don't judge me, I know you know exactly what I'm talking about.

We'll be having another harvest party in three months - you're invited to come. 

Lunch is on us.

what the?!?

Look at what I found tonight when I opened up the worm bin...

Definitely unexpected.

We got the kids out of bed to check it out.  I don't know what they more excited by - the mushrooms or being out of bed.

I did a quick Google search and mushrooms are a sign that the temp is just right for worms...all is well in the bin.

worms, continued

I've had a few people ask for updates on the worm situation...I don't know if it's genuine interest or if it's like a car crash...you just have to look.

We're about, what, a month? into the worm foray and it's been smooth sailing!  In a way, it's a little disappointing because we're really not aware of their residency in our dining room.  Not that that's really a bad thing, I suppose...I wouldn't want to watch them squirming around while I was eating, say...spaghetti.  Sick.  Now I'm feeling nauseous.  Anyway, they are super easy keepers and most of the time I totally forget that we even have them...except for twice. 

The first was when I had a meeting over here and we were sitting at the dining room table.  One of the ladies looked over at the bin, wanted to put her purse down somewhere and asked if there was something alive in there.  "Ummm, ahem, well...yes.  Worms."  A ripple of raised eyebrows traveled around the table.

The second was last weekend.  We had some friends over and wouldn't you know, that was the ONE TIME that the bin actually smelled kind of bad.  We weren't even sure it was the bin - maybe the garbage?  But when we opened it up it was pretty obvious that's where the smell was coming from.  Two minutes after we had opened the lid and the smell was a bit distinct, our friends showed up and there were more flapping eyebrows when I explained the reason.

Social ostracism aside, having worms is great.  Here's why

• They honestly don't stink, except for that one time and I think some onions had been tossed in there accidentally but we tossed some more shredded paper over the contents and it smelled fine after that.  By fine I mean that when we've been gone for the day and you walk in the house you would never, ever, ever guess that there is a mass of seething worms working through decomposing kitchen scraps two feet from you.  When you open the lid it smells really rich and earthy.  It's a good smell.
• They eat lots and lots.  Holy moley can those worms eat!  We put in a bowl of scraps (fruit cores/peels, veggie scraps, bread...I don't do any cooked food or meat/dairy just because that seems really nasty) at the end of each day by scooping out a little area, dumping it in, and then covering it back up with shredded paper.  The amount in the bowl varies but it's usually about the amount if you held your hands out like a bowl and then filled them up.  It takes the worms about a week to turn it into mostly unrecognizable matter.  One week!  Impressive.
• It's like a big science experiment in your dining room.  We had a few interesting discoveries in the last month.  One was a whole crop of really finely stranded mold that showed up overnight and covered the surface of the paper a couple inches deep.  The second was a pill bug crawling around in there.  Where in the heck did that come from?  And there are also lots of tiny, tiny white balls that I thought were eggs but when you really watch them, they move.  I just looked that up online and it turns out they are little mites which are an indicator that there is too much food in the bin.  Maybe the worms don't eat quite as much as I thought! I'll try feeding them a bowl every other day and see how that does.  I'll report the results.  Does anyone have a white lab coat and clipboard?  

Here's a picture of the bin just a day or two before it started stinking.  How's that for a caption!

We tried putting some scraps in a brown paper bag and tossing it in.  Notice the bread...sometimes the kids like to just toss things in the bin.  I'll be ticked if I find my watch or something in there.

Here it is today, smelling fresh as a daisy.  We added the fresh paper about a week ago.  Do you see the brown flecks up the side of the bin - I think that's glorious worm poo!

I dug down into the paper and this is what it looks like.  It might be a little misleading because we did put a little bit of dirt in the bin at the very beginning - maybe a half gallon's worth - so some of the brown is dirt but definitely not all!  Wahoo for worms!

verms

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.