Dad has a worm farm. It’s housed in big blue tupperware boxes on the floor of my bathroom. The bathroom has floor heating, so the tile is a good place for the worms to do their composting magic. We have two composting receptacles in the kitchen. One stainless steel traditional composter (though because of it’s resemblance to R2-D2 it looks more space-age than traditional), and another special container into which we chuck the “worm-friendly” refuse. They enjoy squishy things like apples and tomatoes; right now we’re also saving up some cucumber peelings for them.

Dad thinks I portray him as way too “hippie” in my blog, and I know this only reaffirms that image, but I think he’s awesome for trying this composting method. It took Alice a while to notice the blue bins in the bathroom, and when we revealed their contents to her, she embraced George and said “I didn’t think it was possible to love you any more than I did … but now I do!” I feel the same way. Today I went wild in the produce section at Safeway, giving into all my fruit and veggie cravings, because I more food for me means more food for the wormies! I didn’t think that they would be as intriguing as an ant farm, because you can’t watch them creating their society or tunneling around, but they make a lot of noise as they mush foodstuffs into dirt and it’s pretty cool to sit on the toilet and listen to them. Now, if only we could get them to move out of the lovely soil they have created so we can actually use it to plant!

Having worms in the bathroom is also good practice for me, because who knows what sorts of creatures I’ll be sharing my living quarters with in the tropics?