Worm composting...a tutorial!

Getting back to the irregularly scheduled noodlin'...I did a cool little project last week.

Since last May, I have been obsessed with the idea of vermicomposting. And, you know, having a few hundred pet worms because how could that not be completely awesome? Like many of the projects I think about, I'm always afraid to get started because I'm worried I'll fail and in this case I didn't want innocent lives to be lost if I didn't get it right.

I finally decided to just go for it. I ordered worms from Uncle Jim's Worm Farm -- the woman I spoke with last year said she had lots of success with his worms. Five hundred red wrigglers were on my doorstep two days later.

Oops! My new friends arrived before I had a chance to make a home for them! (The pics are wonky because I was working in a hurry with awful light...sorry! I think you can still see what's going on.)



When the worms arrive, they are shipped in dry soil...



...so you have to give them a drink of water as soon as possible. I watered them and put them in a bin to hang out while I went to the store and got supplies for their house.

I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew I needed something small and, since I don't have major tools (how did I get to be 33 and not have acquired a drill? *scratcheshead*) it would have to be something I could work with using what I had.

I found these:



Perfect! They're small, about 15" sqaure and 18" tall, have lids (I'll show you in a second) and were only around $8 each.

First, I put holes in the bottom of one of the bins. The easy way to do this would have been to use my imaginary drill, but using a hammer and nail worked fine for me. I might borrow a drill and make some bigger holes if I need more drainage. Worms will drown if there is too much water in the bottom of the bin.



Then I put a plant carrier upside-down in the bottom of the second bin.



I placed the bin with holes in it on top.



The bottom bin serves as a drip collector for that fabulous worm tea (Do not drink it! It is for your plants!) that will drain as things start to decompose.

Once it is all assembled, I created some layers of bedding. There are lots of different ways to do this but since this is a really simple bin I'm just creating a couple of brown layers (shredded newspaper, dirt, dried leaves, and grass clippings) for the bottom. I watered the bedding and made sure everything was moist (think wrung-out sponge).



And then showed the worms into their new home!



Their first meal:



And, with the lid on:



The worms need air to circulate through the bin. If your lid doesn't lift up like mine, you can drill holes around the top edge of the bin.

So, that's basically all there is to it. Any of those links up there provide lots of detailed information about how to build your own and can answer questions like "Will my worms try to escape?" or "What/how much should I feed them?" or "When can I harvest the soil?". I just wanted to do a quick little post to show you all how easy this is to get started and that composting doesn't need to take up a lot of space or even happen outside.

I have the bin in my apartment...it doesn't smell and hasn't attracted any flies or anything icky. I keep checking to see if they've eaten anything. (They're really feasting on the quinoa and coffee grounds, but it doesn't look like they've touched the carrot yet...maybe they prefer gooey stuff?) I'll keep you posted and post pics after they've feasted for a few weeks.

Have you tried vermicomposting? Any tips? If you haven't tried it and decide to give it a whirl, let me know how it works out for you! =)

Kill Your Television

I disconnected the cable today after mulling it over for about six months.

It doesn't mean so much to me...I can count on one hand the number of times I turned it on to flip channels. I'm just not one of those t.v. watching people, you know? So much life to see, so many things to do, so many books to read...and now it is SPRING! Yay!

I've been thinking about all of the ways I've simplified my life in the last few years, and how disconnecting from the newspaper and NPR and negativity and magazines full of shinyshiny new stuff that I must have but don't need (and now t.v.!) has really made me feel so much more calm and centered.

I thought a lot about this blog and where it is going and reached a couple of conclusions:

1. I had originally intended to kind of marry my writing and knitting hobbies (as in "Oh! I can write about knitting!"), but
2. I learned that I don't really like chattering on about knitting all that much. There was lots of drama and suspense back when I was learning, but I didn't want to continue inviting that kind of drama into my "relaxing" hobby just so I could have something interesting to write about knitting. (The Yarn Harlot has totally got dramatic knitting covered!), and
3. I'm not a designer, so other than showing off my latest WIP or FO, there's not a whole lot to say, so
4. I started chattering on about everything else under the Sun with absolutely no focus and then
5. felt really guilty because I was not sticking to the point and then
6. fought my way through most posts after that, and
7. finally I gave up fighting...and ended up doing a lot of excellent "other" writing.

What I want to write about (er, have been writing about, just not here) has been moving in a certain direction...but before I move things in that direction entirely I'm going to take a bit of a blogging break and really focus my ideas.

Thank you all for reading my blog! I've really enjoyed chatting with you all and I'll definitely keep in touch over on your blogs. Hopefully you'll come back and visit in a month or so...I'll have tea and cookies ready for you! =)

Until then, enjoy the music, find out what happens if you shoot your television, or think about maybe killing your own television. Or, come visit me on flickr or ravelry!

Love in the Time of Swine Flu

Swine flu. Lots of questions. Where did it come from? Is this The Big Pandemic? Should we restock our Y2K bunkers? Fortify our yarn stash in case of quarantine?

No answers yet, just bad news that seems to be getting worse.

When the government says “be concerned; do not panic,” surely something awful is happening. We probably should have panicked last week.

No worries! I can help you feel better about things. Seriously. I feel great!

Periodically I go on news fasts. I’ll either avoid the news entirely or carefully filter my news sources. I was actually disconnected from the media for the last week or so when all Hell seems to have broken loose. Swine flu was not even on my radar.

You know what was? I was thrilled classes were done for the semester. I was loving being outdoors in the beautiful weather. I was having fun reconnecting with the boys after being focused on hard work for a few weeks. The Sun positively beamed in my corner of the world!

I stepped into the elevator at work on Monday morning and habitually looked up at the news television. There was a small blurb about schools closing in Mexico and a possible pandemic.

I felt all of that positive energy I was rocking leave and settle in right there on the first floor.

“What is this?!?” I panicked. How did I not know about this? I needed to know what was going on right that second.

So I read the news. I read lots of news. I read news until I felt sick and wanted to crawl under my desk and hide. Life just sucked, we were all going to die, and I should just give up now.

Where did all of those good feelings I was carrying around go? What changed?

I realized this morning that nothing had changed at all. All of the good stuff was right where I left it when I decided to read the news.

All I needed to do to get it back was stop reading and refuse to participate.

We can do nothing to stop the swine flu beyond the normal things we do every day to avoid germs. That’s it.

We do not need updates on the minute, on the hour, or even daily. If the “pandemic” gets bad enough to affect us directly, it will be obvious. We do not need the news media to survive.

The news media needs us.

What if, for just one day, we committed to eliminating it from our lives? How much happier would we be?

For me, it would have been a whole lot easier if I hadn’t read the news in the first place. But since I did (and really let myself wallow in it because I am a reformed news junkie and subject to periodic relapse) I had to work hard to shift my perspective. Now that I’ve stopped looking and focusing on all of that negative ick…my world is a fabulous place to be again. What changed? Nothing. I just opted out.

You can do this too! It’s hard to look away from the swine flu/multiple wars/economy/crazy dude in North Korea train wreck right now…but if you commit to it for only one day I promise it gets easier after that. And, I promise that you will feel better!

Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, this blog is now a Piggy-Free Zone! Except for this one, the most awesome piggy of all:



This little piggy is always welcome here!

At the farm, in the woods, now with more turtles!

A beautiful Sunday morning (the first in weeks) with no papers to write, no ridiculous law to get frustrated with, no bankruptcy code to make me want to poke my eyes out with a pen...nothing. Nine credits in seven weeks is a lot. A whole freaking lot.

I am exhausted.

I woke up yesterday with no sense of direction. I didn't remember how to function without a schedule! So many things were waiting for me to look up from the books and step away from the computer. What to do first?

Fulton needed a walk in the sun. Strap your safari hat on, we're going into the jungle.



Fulton rarely turtles. He really wasn't liking the grass at first but kept his little nose out just in case he changed his mind.



Then he remembered that he is equipped with a periscope...



...and decided it might be fun to nom the camera.

Time to do some farming, right? It's spring! Er... Summer? What is it called when it is early spring but it is 90 degrees outside? Springer? Sung? Sumspr?

Wrong. It's just wrong.

But I don't mind just for this weekend because I am so happy to see the Sun!



I love these little seed starters. They are biodegradable...you just pop your seeds in, watch them grow, and when you're ready to transplant the cups break apart and go right into the ground. Maybe not as awesome as my clementine box seed nursery, but definitely better than the flimsy little plastic guys. (I just realized how way ahead of things I am...I started seeds in the middle of May last year! Whoo!)

Eeeep! It's time to take Younger Munchkin for a hike through Saddlers Woods.



I love woods smell. I spent my childhood tucked away in nooks under trees building dams...changing the flow of the water with only a few rocks and sticks. Being in the forest makes me feel small again.



A fleet of water hoppers were out today. The dancing shadows they cast on the bottom of the stream made me giggle. The hoppers didn't want to stay still or work with me on lighting...so we moved on.



Oops. I know better than to wear these shoes when hiking. I really do. In addition to the mud on my favorite Rocket Dogs (*sniff*), blisters popped up and I think poison ivy (I'm not allergic but Younger Munchkin has it...I may only have sympathy itches).

Let's check in to see if any seeds sprouted while we were out hiking, shall we?



!!!!!

What the hell? I was gone only a couple of hours and this happened?

I suspect it was that cat. The other day several people were on my porch (!!!) looking for their lost kitty. Apparently my porch is one of his usual hiding spots.

I'll be out there with my spray bottle today, cat, you betcha. I may even put ice in the water to really drive the point home.

Cake Pops Kicked My Ass

You all know Bakerella, right? The Awesome Goddess of Baking Cuteness who makes everything look so easy? And so cute!

I had to go there. Bakerella made these adorable little cake pops for Easter and I had to make them. I mean, I can work my way around the kitchen...I'm a wicked cook and can bake up a storm...so I was up for a little challenge with my baking assistant, Younger Munchkin. Hell, how hard could it be? She makes these things by the truckload.

I baked the cake and followed the instructions to get here:



Ok...so they're not perfectly round like hers are but bunny heads aren't either in real life so I was just fine with the odd lumps and such. (Actually, Younger Munchkin's were more consistently round than mine.)

Then we got to the "fun" part -- making them look like bunnies!



Actually, this bunny disagrees.

Ears went ok. Noses went ok.

Uh oh. The Wilton food writing pens...don't write on food. I'm not going to get all Oprah and take down the Wilton food writing pen company or anything, but these things really, really sucked. And, I was on a deadline. The only thing I could find were these Wilton pens -- not the pens Bakerella uses. (Those require a level of planning that does not exist in my world.)

*gasp* How will the bunnies have faces and cute little expressions and such?!?!?!

Oh! I know! I'll glue teenytiny little jimmies on for eyes!



This, ladies and gentlemen, is where things started going downhill.

Five hours later all 60ish bunnies had eyes. I was done with bunnies.

But there were still chicks!



I swear I started out full steam ahead on these and intended to finish them all, and they were looking cute even though they didn't have eyes and their wings and feet kept falling off. The eyes are the thing that broke me, though...the idea of gluing 120 jimmies onto 60 chicks over the next five hours...



I decided that they were just going to have to be good enough...because I am not as awesome as Bakerella and I am ok with that. Seriously, she is a genius, and I appreciated Her Amazing Awesomeness even more after having gone through this whole cake pop thing.

I tucked them in a jar with candy, and went out to Easter dinner.

People raved over these things! They were delicious! Especially the chicks -- the candy melts were too thick, so I added some coconut oil to thin it -- they had a subtle, not very sweet coconut flavor. The chicks were my favorite!

Next time...chocolate cake with shredded coconut, chocolate icing, and coconut oil in the candy melts.

Oh, you know I'll be doing this again. I will defeat the cake pops. Besides, I like to torture myself. Don't you?

City Umbrella Rules - A Proposition

Photo credit: // solidether

In the interest of promoting a more civil society, I propose the following rules when walking through the City of Brotherly Love in the rain:

1. It seems the bigger the umbrella a person is carrying, the more slowly they walk. This impedes speedy pedestrian traffic. Meandering through the rain, particularly when it is chilly outside and cars are splashing puddles everywhere, is no fun at all. I propose that if you must carry a five foot-wide umbrella and block the entire sidewalk with it, you walk quickly (slow trot – no reason to dally in the cold rain on the way to the office, you know).

2. If walking quickly isn’t your cup of tea, I will happily trade umbrellas with you – mine is small and built for speed, but I’m up for the challenge of carrying a huge sail through the wind tunnel near Arch Street.

3. Pop quiz time! You’re a six foot tall dude built like a linebacker, and you’re walking directly towards a tiny little woman. Do you
a) change your path slightly so that you only narrowly avoid walking into the tiny little lady and knocking her over onto the wet sidewalk;
b) keep walking directly at the tiny little chick, give her the evil eye, dip your umbrella slightly away from her, and forcefully brush shoulders with her, thereby knocking her bags askew and nearly knocking her over; or
c) pretend you don’t 1) see her there and 2) see that she is an inch from the curb/puddles/traffic, keep your path, avoid eye contact, and force her to dart out into traffic so that you can continue walking in a straight line?

If you picked c), that’s probably exactly what you did this morning…so pleasant! (City of Brotherly Love? *snort*)

4. So, since you answered incorrectly (neither a, b, nor c are correct answers), I propose that when carrying an umbrella and are approaching oncoming umbrella-carrying traffic, everyone on the building side of the sidewalk take one step to the right. In this way, the people walking on the street side of the sidewalk do not have to run out in front of cars to avoid you, and everyone gets to pass freely without getting knocked over. If you are someone who doesn’t like to change course, walk toward the street side; if you are polite and don’t mind moving around a bit to allow other pedestrian traffic to pass, walk on the building side. Everyone knows where they belong and the commute will work much more smoothly.

There is no need to play chicken, guys. There are better ways to demonstrate your manly manliness.

5. Walk in a straight line. This is much easier to do when you are not trying to tiptoe through the city and avoid getting your cute little heels wet. Wear sneakers or rain boots. Good for your feet, good for your back, good for speeding everyone’s trip – it’s a win all around!

6. Keep a firm grip on your umbrella. It is nice that umbrella manufacturers made those pointy little sticky-out things rounded for “safety”, but they can still hook an eyelid and pull it over a nose. Please be mindful!

7. Turn that frown upside-down! We’re all walking in the rain together. It sucks. We all know how much it sucks. You don’t need to tell us all how much you hate the rain and/or how soaked you are while we’re waiting for the light to change. Some of us are trying to block out the ick and enjoy the walk.

8. When exiting a subway station, there is no need to unfurl your umbrella on the stairway and decapitate and/or knock over the people coming up the stairs behind you. Please just don’t. A drop of water is not going to melt you unless you are the Wicked Witch of the West, in which case you’ve got bigger problems than an umbrella is going to solve.

9. Before entering buildings, take a moment to fold and shake your umbrella. This one seems pretty obvious but it is amazing how many people refuse to do this.

So, citizens and commuters of Philadelphia….please think about these proposed rules the next time it rains during your daily sidewalk commute. Maybe you can make your walk more pleasant and, just as importantly, make things pleasant for everyone else around you.

What is in your treasure box?

As I was unpacking, I finally got to the box labeled "Decorate Your Bedroom". Inside the big box were a lot of little boxes and some candle holders. One of the boxes is really special...it is my treasure box:



I found it at a thrift store a long time ago, and decided to keep my coins in it. As time went on, other things that had no home of their own ended up inside.


Casino comp cards, Gumby patch and Yellow Submarine patch (which were supposed to end up on knitted hats), and a dollar folded into a tiny rectangle that I received as part of a tip when I waited tables at a diner.


Beach tags, Obama pins. In New Jersey you have to pay to go on the beach in Ocean City. When we were kids, my mom used to send us off to the water when the tag inspector was walking around inspecting. I don't mind paying for the tags so much...the beaches are very clean and the tags provide jobs for the disabled people who assemble them.


Coins from other lands. I've never traveled, so I am not sure how I ended up with these.


Wheat pennies, a buffalo nickel, gold dollars, and a couple of random pennies. I've always collected wheat pennies and bicentennial quarters (I was a bicentennial baby!)...but they actually have their own box because I've been gathering them since I was very little.


Smooshed pennies (my favorite is the hippo from the New Jersey State Aquarium!) and wooden dice. Funny...I can remember where I was and who I was with when I look at each smooshed penny.


Silver bars and five dollar coins commemorating the launch of Space Shuttle Discovery. When I was I munchkin I wanted to be an astronaut when I grew up...so when my dad gave me those coins I was over the moon with excitement!

Do you have a treasure box? What is in it? Why is it special to you? If you want to do a little blog post and share, I'll do a post next week and link back to it!

I'd love to see what little treasures you keep.

Warren Buffett, The Money Tree

I would like you to meet my good friend, Warren Buffett. As you may know, he is a money tree.

You may not know, however, the story of how knitting saved Warren Buffett's life.

Warren and I have been together since we met at the Philadelphia Flower Show in 2005. I was in the process of leaving a worn-out relationship, moving, changing jobs, changing the munchkins' schools, finding new childcare...basically reinventing our lives completely in two weeks. The flower show brought me so much joy, and I knew that if things were going to work I would really need angels and fairies and God and luck and whatever karma I had banked on my side. I heard that fairies liked to hang out near flowers...so I went to the flower show. Little did I know...Warren Buffett was about to step into my life and make everything fabulous!

I met Warren at that flower show...not expecting to find fortune or riches beyond my wildest imagination. He was a symbol of possibilities and good fortune that I couldn't wrap my mind around at the time because I was so upset about the turn my life had taken. When we met, he was about 12 inches tall and in a cute little pot...his braided trunk was tightly woven and he had maybe 20 leaves.


He's much bigger now.

Amazing things happened when Warren came into my life -- my position at a firm I loved and had been with for years reopened, so I didn't have to look for a job; I was magically able to find a beautiful apartment that was in my price range; I had a five-minute commute; the boys' school was one minute away; childcare was easy to find and affordable; younger munchkin was able to get all of the medical/educational assistance we could ever have asked for -- in short, things just amazingly fell into place. And things continued to just fall into place from that point on.

(That's a nice story, but how did knitting save Warren Buffett's life?) I'm getting there, I promise!!!

About a year after Warren and I met, tragedy struck. I came home from work and there was a suspicious trail of leaves and dirt in the hallway. I followed the trail (keeping my eye on the culprit, a/k/a Rocky, for any tell-tale signs of guilt) to my bedroom, where Warren hung out. Poor Warren had been chomped on at the root and was flopping, completely broken, over the side of the pot!

I righted him in his pot, tucked extra soil in around his roots, and said a little prayer. A few weeks later, my mom gave me some rocks she had collected from a vortex in Sedona...she said they had spiritual healing powers. I placed them around his roots.

I lost one of the trunks, but the rest kept growing despite the fact that they had been completely chewed through and were hanging together by threads!

Warren and I had a pretty uneventful life together after that -- I repotted him a couple of times as he grew stronger, and things kept falling into place in my life.

Fast forward...

When I moved into my apartment, instead of unpacking boxes I decided to try to re-work Warren's braids...I hadn't kept up on them and he was getting unruly. Naturally, I broke one of the trunks in the process and did not have any floral tape (or anything else, for that matter) on hand that I could use to repair him.

I did, however, have knitting supplies!



I stuck a crochet hook next to the broken trunk and wrapped yarn around it to keep the trunk straight. I said a little prayer.

A few months later, I cannot tell where I broke that branch. Warren didn't lose any leaves, never looked unhappy, and in fact grew even bigger.

Also, a curious thing happened:


A sprout!

So, that is the story of how knitting saved Warren Buffett's life.

I don't know why I have a little sprout there, though.


Fulton wants to know: Why are you taking pictures of that big green thing that just sits there instead of me? I do cool stuff! (That is its own post.)

Still Catching Up...

...knitting!

The Twisted Jaywalkers are done!



I'm getting better. These socks...



...only took two months to knit.



As soon as they were done, I cast on for Sweetpea.



That is Schaefer Anne...the colors remind me of Fruity Pebbles but you cannot see that because the Sun is still not shining. It will come out soon enough and better pictures will follow.

Also, school has started again after a long break. I am loving my philosophy class! I have even started working on my term paper already.



Rocky is helping, naturally.

Catching Up...

...because I've been hiding, waiting for the Sun to come out.

He hasn't come out for a whole day in months.

I suppose that explains this, which I spotted on my counter a few weeks ago:



(I put them there...I must have been sending myself a message.)

Younger Munchkin and I looked around in the woods for the Sun, but we only found this poor tree:



and this scary claw bridge:



STOP! being so cranky, I tried to tell myself.



After all, soon it will be time for daffodils.



There are still lots of fun things to play with inside.



And the ocean is still there, waiting for summer just like I am.



Naturally, there is knitting....