Worm Food, 071711

There wasn't too much to feed the crew, but enough to spread around:

• 5 limes
• 1 orange
• 1 plantain
• leftover half of a twice-baked potato with butter
• leftover calabacitas
• 2.5 nasty onions
• old cherries, stems, and pits
• husks and cobs of 3-5 ears of corn
• tomato ends
• basil stems and grody leaves
• red onion skins and ends
• Honey-Nut Cheerios

Somewhere around here a bag of hair is, as Nate put it, "crawling around."

Nate Gave Me Straight-Cut Paper

I received this bag of paper from Nate the 9th. It is the second batch of straight-cut paper I received from him and likely the last as he's moved on to become a Ph.D. One day, I might find myself working for Sir Master Nathan. It would be a pleasure.

Worm Food, 070411

Normally I feed the worms once a week. The weekend of the 26th, I totally slacked and only fed Number 5, which, looking back on was a mistake as it was so humid in the bin. Between June 19th and July 4th, I only had this much food to give the crews. It's pretty paltry.

It turned out to be a good thing I had minimal food since many of the bins didn't need too much food.

I fed the worms:

• half a red onion
• old cherries: stems, pits and all
• ancient nasty pineapple pieces
• mushrooms
• carrot peels and tips
• onion skins
• old cherries, old cherry pits, and old cherry stems
• tiny cloves from a garlic bulb as well as the papers
• celery ends
• corn cobs (3)
• juiced limes
• some Honey Nut Cheerios

That left me with Nate's hair and a partial bag of Cheerios.

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

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.

What's Left of the Worm Food 052911

The photo above was taken after feeding the worms Sunday, depicting what was left from the piles of food.

I fed the five worm bins

• all of Cang's El Pollo Loco tortillas, 4 or 5 bags of 2-3 tortillas each, I forget exactly
• the four ancient whole bananas from my freezer
• all of Bill's banana dubes, about 6
• all of Nate's straight-cut paper
• the entire bag of soggy banana peels and pistachios and strawberry stems
• the equivalent of an entire melon's inedible bits
• the equivalent of half a pineapple's inedible bits
• crusts from two slices of pizza
• about a pound of ancient baby potatoes
• an ancient partial garlic bulb
• an ancient onion

That's a lot of old not-for-human-consumption waste. Imagine shoving all of that into a garbage disposal or filling a garbage bag.

Worm Food as of 052811

I had quite a collection of worm food ready to feed the worms. Check it out:

This gallon bag of banana peels, strawberry stems, and pistachio shells was removed from the work freezer 052711 to sit on the floorboard of my truck overnight by accident. Oops. My truck smelled slightly banana-ish that next day. But I guess that's better than the normal Camel smell.

The week before, I received a Target bag of straight-cut paper from Nate along with a Ziploc bag of the hair from his most recent haircut.

For a second I thought that was Spook!

A few days ago, I received this big bag of Oroweat Sandwich Thins from Ali. From what I can tell, they aren't even bad. Turns out Ali and his wife purchased Sandwich Thins simultaneously and these are the extras. I considered eating some of them, but passed. Bread age isn't as easy to tell as apples.

And since my skewed apartment shit became somewhat straight-lined, I was able to contribute melon rinds and innards, pineapple "skins" and core. Under there somewhere is a couple of slice-sized pizza crusts.

Approximately two weeks ago, I brought home the majority of worm food from the work freezer, a pile of Cang's El Pollo Loco tortillas and a few of Bill's banana dubes. Those black bananas are those that I found since in my own freezer. I'm guessing the bananas are circa June 2010.

Oh, and I nearly forgot, there is this bowl of 3-month-old onions, garlic and potatoes in my pantry.

Oh, what?


What's that?


The hair?


Yeah, it's Nate's.


You want a closer look, you weirdo?

At first I wasn't at all freaked, except for the split second when I thought Spooky had somehow closed himself in a Ziploc within a Target bag. But after opening the Ziploc and finding it was just a mass of hair and Spook was ok, I chilled.

Then I realized the hair was attached to Nate's person just a few days before.

And I got the creeps too. Just a little bit.