Orange County Register

Because I'm a sucker for helping high school students in Santa Ana, I agreed to an 8-week subscription to the OC Register, four dailies from Thursday to Sunday each week. Two weeks in, I have 8 newspapers I haven't even removed from their stupid orange bags except the first Sunday copy, the one with the coupons.

Is there one single coupon I'd use in there? Of course not because I'm the turd who doesn't buy into brand labels.

While I'm all about supporting youth and their high school education so they can do their thing and get the basics of education, I'm not sure that my $20 subscription really does anything but provide me with worm food and a huge pile of glossies I feel obligated to haul to the recycling center.

Maybe the kid I am sponsoring with my 20 will devise a way of really making my contribution work. This "let's sell newspaper subscriptions" thing is seriously antiquated.

Chuck's Questions

As promised somewhere on this blog, I'd answer any questions that have yet to be answered. Chuck posed a couple to me today.

What are the dimensions of one of my worm bins?

Every one of my bins is a 10-gallon Sterilite bin. Each is 12" tall, and across the open top, 18" long and 13" wide.

As Chuck has been closely monitoring the humidity in a see-through bin, he was concerned that it would be hard to determine the humidity in a dark bin.

It's obvious if humidity is too much. Any condensation on the walls of a bin is what I'd consider pushing the limit on humidity. This, for example, is excessive:

Here's a good time to insert a reminder that ventilation holes are an excellent way to circumvent this problem. While there are two rows of ventilation holes (larger holes up top and smaller holes an inch below those) in the bin above, they were drilled too low overall causing the lower holes to be useless as they are masked by the catch bin. Don't make the mistake I made on this bin. Remember that your stand-offs in the catch bin will compress with the mass of the materials in the worm bin and that mass will continuously increase as you feed the worms and thus, compression will increase over time.

Long story short: drill the holes as close to the top as possible.

When this much moisture is present, feed the worms a dry-paper-only regiment until the system is at more desireable moisture levels. High moisture isn't dentrimental to the worms as long as it isn't continued an extended period of time though you might find that the natural balance isn't as worm-favorable as it is mite-favorable.

Cang and Kimberly's Poop; Chuck's Poop with Worms

The purple-lidded Glad container, I think that's 4 cups, went to Cang. The gallon Ziploc went to Kimberly. The 4-gallon container Cang and Kimberly's portions are sitting on went to Chuck. Chuck's portion was about two gallons of clean poop plus the majority of the worms in the poop-batch. I say majority because it's impossible to collect every thread.

Once The Offspring's poop was transferred into a 4-gallon container, the poop-drying container, it was allowed to air-dry with the lid off, 060811.

Another 4-gallon container was placed next to The Offspring's poop-drying container. As I had time, while talking on the phone or listening to the radio, I sifted through the poop pulling out chunks of paper, pistachio shells and seed husks, piling them on the lid of one of the containers. Pieces of plastic, stickers, twist-ties and rubber bands were placed on the lid of the second container.

As I worked through the poop, the clean poop was transferred to the second container, the one on the right, below. Worms were separated into an 8-cup Glad container for Chuck along with some poop.

This is what a full batch of cleaned poop looks like.

And usually, this is where I snap the lid on and call it ready to deliver. This time though I divied it up into Cang's Glad and Kimberly's Ziploc containers leaving the rest in the container.

This pile is the edibles left from the worm poop. I'd dumped the pile of plastics into the garbage but this edible pile wound up in one of the worm bins, Number 5, I think. I could've left this stuff in the poop, but for presentation purposes, particularly when delivering it to a first-time recipient, especially when that person will be using it in their houseplants, I prefer the poop to be as clean as possible.

As I said, the worms were separated out and placed in an 8-cup Glad container. I'd put a melon cube in with them and topped them off with paper.

Chuck's worms were pretty spindly as they are all immature. I've noticed over time that the worm poop is sort of a worm nursery. Baby worms, threads, hatch from the casings and go about their worm business growing up to be little toddler worms, all pink and cute. Chuck's worms, while young and spindly, were thriving worms.

Before delivery, as I'd assumed Chuck was going to spread the wormy-poop over a grape-plant or two, I removed the paper from the 8-cup container and dumped the worms into the white-lidded 4-gallon container.

Post poop-delivery, it sounds that Chuck is planning to raise the worms in my poop-drying container. It'll work, but Chuck will have to particularly attentive to worm light levels, water/humidity levels and paper-food-poop ratios.

I met Kimberly for lunch Tuesday to deliver her poop and she had a big (as in shopping) bag of straight-cut phone book paper for me. I wound up giving that paper to Chuck Wednesday as he was suffering over-analysis paralysis of suitable paper. I hope The Offspring's babies are doing ok.

Maybe I should build Chuck a worm bin and deliver that, asking him to dump the worms and poop in there. My intention was never that the juveniles would be raised in primarily mama and papa poop. Besides, I need my poop-drying container back.

While Number 5's poop has been on deck for cleaning, I've got another batch drying out in it's first story (Number 4's I think) and it should be transferred soon to a smaller container for sorting or the babies in there will die a slow drying death.

That's it, new worm parents should be required to fill out a form so I am completely clear in how the worms should be delivered.

Oh my, what have I done to my those babies?

Wait, Chuck's an engineer, paying particular attention to humidity levels etc. He's been asking me many questions about worm-keeping.

WTF? Doesn't Chuck have a link to this freakin' blog?

Worm Food, 061911

The worm food this week includes the stuff in the photo above:

• two tomatoes
• two weird peaches
• mutant cherries
• once-fresh basil, thyme, and sage,
• a large Glad container of tomato-half, peach-quarter, potato peels, onion skins
• Tupperware of cut melons and pineapples as wells as some Navel Orange

The photo below is additional worm food:

• Ali's bread leftovers
• dried apricots
• dried figs/dates
• crystallized ginger

Not pictured above were the only things remaining after feeding:

• the bag of Honey-Nut Cheerios
• Nate's hair

Worm Food, 061211

Sunday, June 12th, I had quite a bit of worm food going on. I had cleaned out my museum-like pantry, and piled the contents up on the paper cutter:

• a bag of Honey-Nut Cheerios circa May 2010,
• ancient crystallized ginger,
• pretty old dried apricots,
• some old-ass figs or dates or something,
• half a Lindt chocolate bar
• what remains of Ali's bread and
• Nate's hair

In the forefront of the photo is a:

• bowl of salad I mixed and never ate,
• big* Glad container of salad mix
• 2-cup bowl of cut fruit that rode in my backpack a couple days
• mid-sized* Glad container of cherry pits, cherry stems, pineapple core, and melon rinds
• big Glad container of orange and lime peels and pulp
• big Glad container of more orange peels and melon rinds
• big Glad container of pineapple peels and more melon rind/seeds and pulpy stuff

Everything but what was on the paper cutter was fed to the worm bins Adam, Eve, The Offspring, Number 4, and Number 5, leaving me a pile of dirty dishes.

*big = 8-cup, mid-sized = 6(?) cup

How I Made Eve, aka, How to Split a Worm into Two

June 28, 2008 Adam was born. By August, I determined that an Eve was necessary. And so she was made.

Segue:

Holy crap, I've been keeping worms for nearly three years!

Later this month will be the 3rd anniversary;

I know it's not the paper anniversary

so would it be rock or scissors?

 

August 26th, 2008, Eve was born from Adam. I had made it so. Rodney helped. Not that Rodney and I...well, nevermind. Eve came from Adam. Period.

 

Look at the time frame between Adam and Eve. That's just two months. Certainly I could've postponed on making Eve, but at the time I was ultra-concerned that the worms would be suffering if I kept them in such a pile of poop. As I said in the About Me, I didn't know what to do with so much (what I'd now consider not-very-much) of Adam's poop anyway.

 

So let's take a look at what I did to split Adam into Adam and Eve. It'll be fun trip down memory lane for me and, for my current generation of worms, family history.

 

First, I soaked a couple of paper grocery bags in water and transferred them to the newly bottom-holed Eve. Then I soaked some shredded paper, primarily grocery bags, and transferred those to Eve.

Because I bought the coir and hadn't used it to make a bed for Adam, I went ahead and used it to make bedding for Eve; surplus went to Adam. This poorly imaged brick of RoLanka coir was what I started with.

After removing the coir from the plastic encasement and glossy paper label, the brick went into the water left from soaking the above-mentioned paper.

The coir went from totally dry at time zero to semi-soaked exterior in 6 minutes and (after flipping) totally-soaked exterior at 36 minutes.

The coir was totally soaked and started breaking up at about 38 minutes.

I put in a nice layer of the coir on the paper in Eve.

Followed by a nice even layer made up of some of this food.

The food included coffee grounds and filters, puffed rice cereal, lettuce, tomatoes, used paper towels, melon rinds and seeds, carrots and mushrooms.

Adam sidled up next to Eve and gave her half of his wormy contents.

Adam was fed the rest of the food and Eve was topped off with more damp grocery bag strips.

After the remaining coir was spread over Adam, additional dry paper was added to the coir water briefly before being spread over Adam's coir layer.

Cardboard from a thin box a book came in was placed over Adam and Ever before their lids were snapped on.

Voila, a happy couple. 

Last Night on Netflix

I'm one of those people who have difficulty getting to sleep. I'm not sure why since I enjoy sleeping. You hear about people who think it's a "waste of time" and they don't "bother" with all of that "excess sleeping" bullshit. I think they are crazy. And old who miss their youth. Young people like sleeping and don't look down on other people who enjoy that daily slice of heaven.

Again, I don't understand why I have a hard time getting to sleep. It's insane. Considering how I feel about sleep, you'd think I'd be narcoleptic.

Mid-late '90's I'd plug in a VHS (rented from Blockbuster since you could rent a non-new-rental for $0.99/week) since by the time I came home from work regular TV was simply a high-pitched screen with the stupid lateral rainbow; turn the volume way down, set the sleep timer on the TV for 60 minutes and after straining to hear what was going on for 30 minutes, would finally pass out into blissfully comforting dreams.

Now, most nights I look for something of minor interest to fall asleep to on the iPad. I find a show/movie/whatever of some interest, push play, and turn the volume down to something just barely audible.

After straining to hear for 5 minutes I'm asleep within the next 0:04 minutes. Of course, I might toss and turn anyway for a couple hours only to realize how long I've been awake when the barely audible sound is suddenly non-existent. The neat thing about Netflix is that it remembers what I watched last so I can queue that last thing up from my "recently watched" list and fast forward to watch the next 5:04 minutes. Of course, my VHS player used to rewind at the end of the tape automatically, but that would mean I'd have to FF 5 minutes worth of tape. Or 30. Or 70, depending on the day.

Last night, I found that the A&E show "Hoarders" was available for streaming. I watched two episodes back-to-back with the volume at low. I strained to hear and could not stop watching. Finally I forced myself to turn that window to the universe off before pushing "play next episode" the third time.

I'm on my way to bed in a few minutes. I'm going to watch episode 3 of the first season. And possibly 4 of the first season. I hope I can turn it off before watching the 5th.

I'm sick.

Prepping Number 5 and The Offspring Poop Beginning 052911

When feeding the worms, I assess them to determine

• how much food I should give them
• how much moisture they have: is it excessive or do they need more?
• whether there's enough worm action happening in the 2nd story that I can remove the 1st story to begin processing that poop for delivery

May 29th, I found that Number 5 was worthy of having it's 1st story removed from the system. The compacted poop was churned up with my three-pronged gardening tool to loosen it up and aerate it, expediting drying.

That same day I found that The Offspring was also worthy of having it's 1st story removed from it's system. The Offspring's compacted poop was churned up, er I mean aerated, too.

Both 1st stories were placed on bin lids (without holes) so loose poop wouldn't get all over my kitchen floor. It's all about poop containment. Experience tells me that worms won't migrate through the holes in the bottom of the bin(s) and over the low lip of the lid(s) to die a treacherous death via drying on the floor. It just doesn't happen. Worms will stay where it's dark and moist. The worms might get skinny and weak from lack of food, but they will not venture into light.

I left both 1st stories uncovered to let the excess moisture from them evaporate.

And then I looked at them June 2nd. I might've churned them up a bit. Or not. Anyway, they looked like this:

I'd placed a Post-It in The Offspring that said "The Offspring" so I'd know which one was from The Offspring. I'm slick like that.

Fast forward to June 8th.

I transferred Number 5's poop from the bin into a 16L container.

And I did the same with The Offspring poop.

See how I track shit with the Post-It label? It's all technical-ish.

Stick around and I'll tell you how to "finish" a batch of poop so it's ready for dispense.

Worm Food, 060411

My worm food collection was primarily from my own kitchen, now that the apartment craziness has quit and coworkers seem to have forgotten that they could save worm food in the freezer.

I had Nate's hair and Ali's bread left from last week, plus four 8-cup Glad containers of goods.

The worms were fed

• the majority of Ali's bread
• the last two ancient onions from last week
• some basil stems and leaves
• some new onion skins
• a couple gluten-free lasagna noodles
• carrot peels
• corn cobs, husks and silks
• lettuce "bones" and outer leaves
• turnip peels
• parsnip peels
• celery root peels, and
• little garlic cloves and skins

That left me with all of Nate's hair and just a few of Ali's sandwich rounds.

I'll be honest, I'm a little more freaked about Nate's hair than I thought I'd be. I'm not sure if I should just dump it into a worm bin as is or if I should *eek* take scissors to chop Nate's hair up and disperse it among the five bins. This coming weekend, I'll have made a decision on the hair.

And if you're wondering about what that thing was in Number 5, I have no answer. By the time I got around to feeding the worms it was getting toward twilight and by the time I fed Number 5 I had a hard time distinguishing any one thing from another. Chances are though, it was a peeled banana. If I find that thing intact this weekend, I'll seriously stroke out.

What the Hell is THAT?

Feeding the five crews Sunday, I was proceeding as usual and when I came to it I fed Number 5.

Note: the crew is laid out pretty randomly and Number 5 was probably the third to be fed, not the last. I need better names for these crews. I have an idea on how to name them, but that's for later discussion, or not.

Anyway, I popped the lid off Number 5 and saw the Papa John's box lid was looking normal. Pulling that off, I saw that things below were normal. No excess moisture, not too dry, no fruit flies, no weird unknown bugs, no mite bloom. Perfectly normal. I do have to say that I wish I hadn't been in what must have been a rush when prepping this bin for Number 5 as the paper is so clumpy. It really should've been a little drier and thus not so clumped before being placed on the first story. It doesn't really matter since the worms are eating it, it's just annoying when I'm digging around in there, turning chunky wads of paper.

So I dug up the left side, put in some of Nate's straight-cut paper to use as napkins before topping with soggy banana peels and strawberry tops.

After I covered the left side, I dug up the right side, added in some of Nate's paper, including the note he'd left on the Target bag designating the bag's contents Worm Food, and put in soggy bananas and pistachio shells as well as some weird thing I couldn't identify. What is that thing?

Rolling on, I covered the right side and topped Number 5 off with additional slightly damp newspaper. I had this paper left from when I prepped second stories for other bins. As much as I'd like to, it's impossible to document every single thing that happens with the bins. Ok, scratch that. It'd be possible, but insanely time consuming, to document every single thing that happens with each of the bins.

Now let's step back a minute. Back to when I fed Number 5's right side. I mentioned a weird thing I'd fed them.

For real.

What the hell is that? What is that thing?

If that thing is gone when I feed Number 5 next, I'll be confident if was an uneaten peeled banana.

If that thing is still in the bin when I feed Number 5 next, I am going to be completely horrified.