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?

Kimberly's Phone Books Made a Second Story for The Offspring

Back in September, I talked about the food offerings Kimberly made and mentioned that Kimberly's phone book offerings would require another post. Now's the time to button down what seems to be the hardest button to button as it's taken me so long to get to it.

Of course, I was reminded of this by the fact that sometime a couple weeks ago Kimberly gave me a bag of shredded paper from her straight-cut paper shredder. Thanks Kimberly!

I love Kimberly's paper as it's so, so fluffy, and not at all compacting when wet. When I tell her so, Kimberly reminds me that the shredded paper I love comes from a shredder from WalMart, which causes my sphincter to constrict just slightly*.

Here's the stack of two phone books, right there with Kimberly's Post-It declaring them worm food. Thanks again, Kimberly!


I peeled the front and back covers as well as glossy middles from the meaty paper sections of the phone books so I could take those glossies to OCC for recyling.


And so you'd be absolutely clear, here's some of the phone book meat, complete with Kimberly's Post-It attached.


When I got down to the last bit of meaty phone book middle, I chopped the Post-It up with it, yielding a 10-gallon bin full of shredded newspaper. Now you know it takes two large phone books and a 3x3" Post-It to yield a 10-gallon bin of shredded paper.


Then Spooky climbed inside the bin to pack the paper down because we work as a team. Spook's like a mama cat, lookin' out for a nice nest, but with him it's all about...well, him, and his personal comfort. Spooky likes paper.


Over the next couple days, Kimberly's phone book shreds were marinated in tap water, drained, and made into a second story for The Offspring September 12th, 2010. It's like a born-on date but better than Budweiser. That might be because I don't drink beer.


Just so you know, I had supplied The Offspring's second story with leftovers from an Ethiopian recipe (primarily cabbage and potatoes) I had tried as well as melon rinds and old pineapple bits, about 5 cups. I didn't bother looking for dirt.  There's enough in the unwashed vegetable peels I feed the worms anyway.


Since I began harvesting The Offspring's first story December 12th, those worms are now operating primarily on Kimberly's phone books, with additions from other sources as necessary, including part of the new batch of Kimberly's paper!

I now wonder if I should get a kitchen balance to measure the mass of food I actually feed a worm bin. So far, I've been doing it by volume, even though it's said worms eat their mass in X amount of time. That'd be one way of deducing my worm poundage per bin too. Hmm...

*I'll save you the grief of reading the deluge of reasons why I don't shop at WalMart. I'll just say,

• When Kimberly's shredder dies, I will personally go out and buy her a new straight-cut shredder from another vendor.  Note To Self: Get some ads up on this blog for funding.
• WalMart: The High Cost of Low Prices

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In other news:

• I fed the worms all of Bill's doobs over the weekend;
• The original Bill's Banana Peel's bag and bag of Tony's rice are long gone now;
• I'm enrolled in Korean 2 and it still sucks being the slow kid. The other kids laugh when I answer in English, but I don't do it to make a joke. I figure an answer in English is better than none at all. It's a weird thing, but I have serious difficulty when it comes to speaking in Korean, like I'm doing something wrong and Mrs. Sorenson won't give me a smiley-face hand stamp if I speak Hanguk
• Compels me to provide a grant to my elementary school with a specific clause that the money can only go toward minority or half-breed kids and those with a primary language other than English cannot be brainwashed into speaking English-only with Chutes and Ladders and smiley-face stamps in SPEECH THERAPY. Yes, I realize I need to hone that a bit.
• Ali's liquid diet lemon halves are way long gone by now, but I'll give you a visual on that
• Tony's squash plants grown impromtu from poop have suffered a drowning death with all the rain in December. Please, let's take a moment and bow our heads.
• Tony has sprinkled some of his latest poop in various areas of his giant outdoor domain; I'll be bugging him and Clare for photos
• And yes, I WILL get Clare's previous photos up one of these days

A Batch of The Offspring's Poop is Ready to Go

I put a second story on The Offspring September 12th. Each time I fed The Offspring, I made it a point to look at the first story and give it a good stir. It's a nice way to determine if I'm supplying enough paper when feeding the second story. If the poop in the first story is too goopy with moisture, I add more paper to the second story. Simple enough, eh?

I fed The Offspring's second story 8 times over three months before I decided that it was time to do something with the castings in the first story. December 12th, I removed the second story, put the second story in the catch bin, and took a look at the poop.

The poop was compact from the weight of the second story and was pretty damp. I gave it a good stir with my trowel.

And then I left the uncovered poopy bin by the other worm bins.

And it sat there for nearly a full month.  I think I stirred the poop around twice in that time.

Last night I removed the inorganics and transferred the larger uneaten clumps of paper from the poop into The Offspring worm bin.

And that left me with a 16-quart container of worm poop.

Not Tony's gonna get this in the morning. About a month from now, Bill's batch should be ready.