Composting

Well, Rachel inspired me to try out vermiculture, or worm composting.

So I got some worms from a lady in my neighborhood that uses this method to compost the manure from her sheep pen.

Here are some pictures of me making a home for them:

Drilling air holes. Power tools are for women too.

Here, I’ve put in a bit of shredded paper.

Then, I added some bits of cardboard, and some broken twigs that I cut out of the Autumn Aster bed.

I had some helpers breaking up the aster stems. Don’t you love the “garden” gloves they found to use while helping me? My children are Adorable!

I mixed this all up added some water till it was nice and mushy, but not too sloppy (we don’t want our little fellas to drown now do we?) On top of all this I added a few big gobs of straw/manure from the chicken coup, more water. And then, I popped the lid on and set it in the sun so it’ll get nice and steamy and ready for the worms.

In the meantime, while they are waiting for their big farmhouse, they’ll have to settle for a small townhome under my kitchen sink. I’ve added a little bit of straw stuff, an apple core and a tea bag, just till the bin is ready. You can see one of the little guys on the far rim of the container. Woohoo.

Here are the worms. They are not regular nightcrawlers or earth worms you buy in a bait shop. These are composting worms called redworms, aka red wrigglers.

So that’s my fun Saturday project… yes still it counts as school.

Initiative in My Big Boy.

Andrew has always had a wonderful sense of initiative. Just in case anyone thought it was something I did, it isn’t. Perhaps I did encourage it quite heavily when he was little and I had baby after baby that made me depend on his help bit more than I normally would have. And, we used to listen to a story/song cd called Patch the Pirate goes to the Jungle, in which Palumbo Pygmy sings the Initiative Song. We love Patch!

For whatever reason, Andrew really does thrive on being helpful. If ever I have difficulty with an attitude of his, I give him a job and watch the selfishness melt away and the confidence blossom. He likes work.

Here he is, today, cutting the Scotch Thistle sprouts with a shovel… in the neighboring lot no less! No one asked him to, he just knows that they spread like crazy and we don’t want them on our property. Isn’t he thoughtful? What a great kid!