AT LAST!

Things aren't always what they seem- that would have to be the theme phrase for today.

FINALLY, I kicked into high gear with the wormies and weighed, moved, and cleaned up their area. However, the results were not as spectacular as I had dreamed.

First off, if you've been reading this blog you understand that worm progress is mind-numbingly slow...almost past the point of watching paint dry. They move slow (you can figure this one out), they eat slow (one batch of food per week for thousands), and apparently they mate slow (go figure). Now, don't get me wrong- if this was any other business or endeavor and I ended up with three times as many of anything else, I'd be jumping for joy.

Worms give your dreams a chance to take hold and fly like crazy, because you can't really see exactly what they're up to til Moving and Weighing Day. And in my imagination, I pictured worms so overjoyed and elated to have found such a wonderful, magnificent home and such delicious carefully prepared scraps that they were wildly slithering far more copiously than your regular old hum-drum worm. I guess I was wrong.

I started with one pound (about 1,000) worms back in August.

Right now in January, about five months later, I have a little over three pounds. (In my imagination, I had about six pounds. )

I separated them more evenly this time and put one pound in each bin.

One bright spot was that I saw lots of babies, so I am keeping my fingers crossed for the next few months!

Jingle worms, jingle worms

Oh, the weather outside is frightful- and it is still a bit chilly in my basement. But, all seems to be well with the wormies and we are getting ready for the big weigh in and move this weekend.

Just to update from previous posts, the mighy Serra Eagles did indeed make it all the way to Hershey, to the State Championship for the Single A Division. Hooray! However, what they did when they got there rhymes with "booze" and we are not going to say it out loud in this blog!

Since I have off work til right after the New Year, I am able to devote more attention to the squirmers. They are still getting down on some grapes from last week- I don't know what's taking so long, I wonder if they are getting drunk on the grapes?- but I got plenty of Christmas goodies in the wing for the first feeding after the new bins are done.

One of my favorite Christmas gifts this year was a purse and wallet made from recycled billboard. Check them out and save the Earth!

Worm Blankets?

It gets kind of chilly here in Pittsburgh, PA, and so does our basement on a 10 degree night. So what are the wormies to do? I wrote to my worm advisor, and he said they can survive fairly cold temps, but that the colder temps make them lose weight and not multiply as fast.

Hmmmm....sounds like a solution for a few other world problems to me....

Anyway, until someone invents worm blankets, worm comforters, or worm warmers (say that three times fast!), I'll just have to pray they know to stay burrowed down in the nice cozy peat, paper, and food mush!

Wiggling their way to the state playoffs...

So, the worms are great. But do you want to know what's even better? SERRA CATHOLIC EAGLE FOOTBALL!

While I am busy with worms, my husband is an assistant coach for the Serra Catholic Eagles. Last Friday, they won the WPIAL Championship at Heinz Field, beating Springdale 10-6. To punctuate the win, my Dad and I had a great time afterward at the Bettis Grille 36- where they serve a mean deep fried Italian hoagie and have the best TVs anywhere. This week, the Eagles move on the PIAA State Playoffs against the North Star Cougars.

I thought the worms were taking a long time, but this football season has been lasting a long time, too! It had better end with a win in Hershey, PA!

I promise promise promise I will focus on the worms next time. I have three new bins ready for action. All I gotta do is find the time and not cop out on the weighing!

Pumkin Eaters

This story loses points for timeliness... but the wormies enjoyed Halloween by eating all the insides of the pumpkins we carved! Also, they got a bunch of rotten bananas after our eyes were bigger than our appetite for bananas last week at the grocery store.

Moving on (they are happy, healthy, and crawly- all a new worm farmer could wish for!)- time to discuss my new favorite fruit this week- pomegranates. They are yummy and interesting and bitter sweet and take a lot of effort to eat. I mean, like by the time you are done cutting, soaking, and picking out the good arils, you have probably burned all the calories that are in the whole thing.

I swear next week I'll get back to concentrating on worms. Worm farming is just so easy and requires so little energy and focus, that it's easy to leave your little friends hanging (both the ones in the bin and the ones expecting to read a worm-type blog).

I promise next time I'll be buying up more bins and weighing worms- just you wait and see! I'll use that scale yet!!!

Zzzzzz....

Feed, spray, watch. Feed, spray, watch. We are kind of in a holding pattern here, folks, while the wormies eat, stay moist, and procreate. Not much action to report unfortunately.

At this point, there are three bins and each has PLENTY of worms inside. Next steps are to create seven more bins so I have a total of ten, and of course do what I couldn't do the first time out- weigh them.

In other news, big dog day today....Barktoberfest at South Park seemed to be a smash success with our dog. We also walked dogs today at the local humane society. Gotta love those poochies!

Save the Babies!

You may remember this photo from my last post:Get ready for some shock and awe involving this image.

As a novice worm grower and worm mover and worm binner and worm re-settler, I dumped the bin out and put the contents into a big heap. The worms moved away from the light and I took the first layer of castings and put them in another pile. I did this a few times and then picked out some doodads that weren't castings- i.e. eggshells, paper bits- to come up with the five bags shown above.

Eventually, I got a little freaked by the sheer volume of worms (I'm new at this!) and felt a little bad (stress! stress! stress!) and I quickly placed them in their new bins with the rest of the castings.

I kept the little plastic bags of harvested castings open to try to air them out and make sure they dried out before I closed them. A few days later, I checked the bottom of the bags to see if they were dried out and....here comes the shock and awe......

There were teeney, tiny, barely there BABY WORMS in the bottoms of all the bags where a little moisture was left- and, THANK GOD!- they were still alive! I switched in to worm-saving overdrive mode and picked those little babies out with my bare hands and threw them back in with their families!

I am so sorry, baby worms! No one told me this might happen! No where in the worm literature did I read about baby worm sacrificing during casting harvesting! NO WHERE! Who would have guessed???

The only question is....what happens next time? What is the proper procedure to save the baby worms?