The Great Escape

Things are going well Chez Lindy's. The balcony has been swept, there are empty flower pots, a giant sack of potting soil, six root-bound impatiens plants and a package of impatiens seeds out there. Later down the road, I look forward to my new housemates, affectionately known as the little wrigglers, producing a bountiful crop of...well, worm poop to feed all my new balcony plants.

heh, heh. I might be known for my overly long-term plans. But it all meshes well, theoretically. Notice, I've got the ecosystem thing going. I eat my food, the scraps go to the worms, the worms supply castings for the flowers, the flowers produce pollen, I commune with nature and sneeze my face off. A closed cycle for life on the balcony.

After making tea and collecting the used tea and lemon peel, I dutifully feed the little wrigglers and head on out to do my laundry.

(Time passes....)

RUSTLE, RUSTLE...

Huh...but it's daytime. The little wrigglers are very light-phobic. It says so in the instruction manual...

RUSTLE, RUSTLE, RUSTLE, RUSTLE, RUSTLE

This is clearly a job that calls for latex-free nitrile-coated gardening gloves.

Well prepared, I approach the bin and lift the lid. Yargggghh!

Holy smoke! They are trying to crawl straight up the plastic and out of the bin.

OK, don't panic.

Umm, too late for that. Try calming down instead.

Right, I know about this. This is called catastrophic failure of the bin. The worms will die and little worm ghosts will haunt me unless I fix this.

I'm not panicking here...

Think, think, think

There are only a few variables involved, level of moisture and composition of food. The worms would want to escape if there was too much water, so I can fix that by adding more bedding on top and fluffing the stuff on the bottom. Done.

What about the food?

Well, what about the food?

Tea leaves, lemon and leftover lettuce. Seems alright. Hey, I ate it.

I send a guilt-stricken email to my local, friendly vermicomposter enquiring about details of worm diet. I can't believe I'm bugging someone about worms on a Sunday. He responds within minutes. This is soOoo Silicon Valley.

Wow, lemons are poisonous to worms. So, are oranges but less so. No salt, onions, garlic, spices, oil, meats, dairy either...

Gee, in order to get my table scraps to conform to the little wriggler's dietary needs, I better follow the American Heart Association's guidelines to the dot.

My heart drops straight into my shoes with the next instruction. Remove all of the offending, suspicious food scraps and surrounding bedding and replace with fresh bedding.

Don't I wish I used those tea bags instead of loose tea right now?

The garden gloves won't cut it. They only go up to the wrist. I need something that will reach in there. I raid my kitchen for utensils for worm rescue. Long tongs for reaching in. A plastic spoon to scoop the little guys/gals (they are hermaphrodites) back into their nest. Fresh bedding materials. Some chlorine-free water (let it stand overnight and it's chlorine-free).

After much rummaging, the bin is ready to go again.

But maybe not indoors?

Sorry, little housemates.

You're banished to the balcony.

Ahem, those barbecue tongs...they're yours now.

Eat your lettuce. I'll buy you a nice avocado treat if you all promise not to run away again.


Next:

The Party Crashers

How do I welcome several thousand new housemates?

After sweeping up the results of Big Brother's prolific and probably profligate social activities, I felt left out or just jealous that a tree might be having more fun than me. My place needed more... life. I'd enrolled in a class that taught how individuals could reduce global warming. I decided I'd fill the gap and reduce global warming at the same time.

I gotta admit, I'm willing to do things via Internet that I would never do in real life. Would I talk to a stranger in a bar? Would I really go out on a blind date? But I blithely signed up for a class on composting and paid the fee to purchase the, ahhh..., supplies.

****Warning****


The rest of this isn't for the squeamish.



****************

So....

I live in a condo. Spacious for a condo but still there is no yard.

My garbage goes into a collective bin and the HOA imposes the collection fee. I have no direct cash incentive to reduce my output.

I'm not exactly the kind of person who wants to sink several hundred dollars into composting equipment for tight spaces. The infinite wait time required for payback is too much for me (read - I am cheap).

There is only one type of simple, inexpensive composting system that can recycle organic material without a backyard.

Worms, worms, worms.

The only question is which kind of worms?

The composter offers red wigglers or the european night crawlers.

I look at the red wigglers. They try to hide.

My stomach quivers.

I look at the european night crawlers. They look back.

Right.

Those red wigglers are looking mighty cute now.

After listening to the instructions for the care and feeding of red wigglers (Eisenia fetida), I feel better about adopting several thousand new housemates and head on home.

Following the instructions, I sit and shred massive amounts of office and newspaper to make bedding material. After a while I start to run out. Luckily, I own stock in Citibank and haven't switched to the electronic annual report yet. (At the present time, that is the only good news about Citibank stock). It's barely enough material for the minimum bed. After dampening the bedding material, I add my new housemates into the bin. They all step lively and dive for bottom.

Excellent companions.

Topping up the bin with some more bedding material, I take a break to gather up some scattered supplies and to retrieve some of the food scraps I'd saved to get the bin started.

All in all, not bad for one day. I learned how to compost with worms, set up a bin and fed my new housemates.

Time to call it a day.

Rustle, rustle...

What's that?

rustle...

huh?

I peek into the bin.

So that's why they call it night life.


Next:

The great escape