Reflections on the Tenth Week of Summer

      Thursday Spence said, “Your worms are dying to see you.”

      Though the light was on to keep the red wrigglers inside the worm factory in the basement shower stall, fifteen got out overnight. Two acted out their name as I lifted them back into the bedding. The others had dried stiff and black on the bathroom floor. Why hadn't the light kept them inside?

      All through winter, a space heater blew air toward the factory to keep the temperature in the fifties. A cup of food a day gradually raised the bedding. Summer temperatures between sixty and seventy, however, were optimal for reproduction. The original thousand worms multiplied. I added two cups of food a day. Bedding decreased. I increased to three cups a day. But fifteen escapees convinced me that wasn't enough. I combined wilted pansies, stale bread, soft strawberries, potato peels, tea leaves and coffee grounds with shredded paper for twelve cups of food to spread over the wriggling mass.

Only four escaped Friday. I added eight cups of food.

      Saturday, I gave the worms eight more cups and directed Spence to rearrange the heavy worm trays putting the bottom one on top. That contained dark, wet worm casting compost–almost ready to use as fertilizer. I just had to get the worms to evacuate first. With a plastic rectangle, I raked and mounded the compost into a pyramid. The manual said leaving the lid off would dry the compost and encourage the worms to descend into the food tray below. I should scrape off compost till I came to a worm, let the compost dry, and scrape again.

     Sunday morning, no worms had escaped, but I'd only scraped off five percent of the pyramid. Worms were in no hurry to leave the moist mound. Would the twenty-eight cups of food I'd recently added last in the lower layer till I could clear the compost and start a new food tray?