I am not green, really I’m not. I honestly don’t know how I ended up with a composter and a worm bin in my backyard. Sure I recycle cans and bottles like the next guy or gal but saving all my vegetable peels and plucking corn cobs from the trash can, how did that become me?? I am accidentally green at best. My composter was basically an impulse buy while in the check out line at Elephant Pharmacy. The worst thing is that now that I am green, I don’t know how to stop and my worms are on a hunger strike.
I guess one problem with being accidentally green is that you don’t know what the heck you are doing. I didn’t realize that once your composter fills up you then have to let it “work” for two weeks to a month necessitating a second composter waiting in the wings or – wait for it—a worm bin. Such is how I became the owner of a worm bin (oh and thankyouverymuch nice lady at the San Mateo County Fair composting booth who gave me the brochure letting me know the county subsidizes a worm bin for county residents – that pushed me over the edge).
Once the worm bin arrived, I then realized that you need – you guessed it – worms (which you can conveniently order and have shipped to you via UPS). Now I am the owner of two pounds of red wrigglers (yes, their official name). My composter is full but I am back in business and no longer have to throw all my avocado peels, strawberry tops, eggshells into the trash – I can feed them to my red wrigglers who according to the brochure will happily consume one half pound of this stuff a day. I try and coax my kindergarten son into “feeding” the worms with me (he of course wants nothing to do with it) I lift the lid on the bin to find that about a pound of them are trying to escape! I kid you not you would think these worms are trying to make it back to the mother ship or mother earth as they are actually wriggling away and are wriggling fast. I beg my kindergartner to hand me one of his plastic shovels; he gives me a twig. I spend fifteen minutes shoving all my precious bought and paid for worms back in, then add all my rinds, peels, coffee filters, egg shells etc and cover everything with wet newspaper per the Wiggly Ranch directions (the honest d’gawd name of the worm bin).
Yesterday, feeling mildly green, albeit accidentally, I went to check on my no-legged friends to find they have not touched a thing! They are apparently on a hunger strike or something. Maybe they ate on the plane. I have no idea, but the strawberry tops, carrot peels and the like are piling up here and now that I am accidentally green, can I really throw in the towel aka trash?
