worms

The worms are here! The worms are here!

Ew. The worms are here.

But the instructions that came with the worms say that these little guys will stay in the composter if I keep a light on, because electricity is magic. Also, warm. The blob of worms I got came rolled up in some peat moss that was tossed in a bag, and the bag was boxed without any insulation. The post office left it on my doorstep on the one day this week that the high temp was in the mid-thirties, so I lucked out there. If they’d come a day later, they would’ve been a solid block of worms by the time I got home; the temp today isn’t expected to get any higher than the teens.

Even though they weren’t frozen solid, I still had the sneaking suspicion they were dead. They sure looked dead, and I have no idea how cold worms can get before they throw in the towel. Colder than thirty-five degrees, it turns out, and it may not even have been the cold that made them look so lifeless. The worm farm I bought them from packs them in peat moss to dehydrate them. They say the worms travel better when they’re dried out. Seems kinds mean, but okay.

After bedding them down in the composter, we sprayed them with water every hour or so. They began to wiggle and show other signs of life after just an hour, and were crawling through the kitchen scraps and leaf litter when I checked on them after dinner, so I guess they’re feeling better. They’d better get to work, because we’ve got a huge backlog of kitchen scraps for them to chew through.