Worm Farm

I awoke in the night, worried.

I just had to check, be sure everything was okay.

The possibility of their demise weighed too heavily on my pillow to allow sleep.

My worms had arrived the day before.

Were they still alive?

This venture started two summers ago, before soils guru Nicole Masters held a workshop at my ranch.

When I began exploring the possibility of a workshop, I hoped it would be a demonstration of not-yet-perfect-but-improving soils that lead to improving profits for my neighbors and me.

Severe drought hit that summer.

Grass that had hidden wounds to the land had been grazed by livestock and grasshoppers, revealing bare spots between plants.

My shameful secret had been divulged.

When Nicole arrived, we spent an hour searching for my sheep -- one more unavoidable embarrassment.

The workshop became a whack on my head to get in gear and get better.

Nicole kept talking about vermicast – the natural fertilizer deposited by the hind end of a worm.

She suggested I start raising worms, then spread the vermicast to kick-start life in the soil.

I poo-pooed her suggestion. I couldn’t even find my sheep. I certainly did not need to start yet another enterprise.

I pretended I wasn’t overwhelmed, but she saw through my shield.

Fast-forward two years.

A second year of bone-dry weather and a lot of hard-headed resistance later, I revisited the vermicast idea.

Maybe I could try it on a tiny scale.

My brother and his wife sent a worm farm for Christmas.

Surprise Number 1: It didn’t come with worms.

I ordered worms online.

Surprise Number 2: They would not send worms until temperatures rose so the worms would not freeze.

I realized that I have a lot to learn about worms.

Four months later, I received a note that my worms had been shipped.

The weather was warm, but the forecast predicted that 34 degrees, wind and snow would close that narrow window.

I called the post office to ask if my worms were there.

Nope. No worms.

I asked them to call if the worms arrived the next day.

The next morning, the forecast came true; snow flew sideways.

I called the post office again. If the worms had arrived, I would make a trip to town to pick them up.

No worms today.

Whew!

I thought about other things until that evening when it was time to bring the sheep past the mailbox and back to the barn.

Five hours after the mail delivery, a box of chilled worms rested on top of a couple of envelopes.

I stuck the box inside my coat and headed to the warm house, just as I would for a cold newborn lamb.

Fortunately, the worm farm instructions explained how to create a bed for the worms and feed them just a little bit.

Surprise Number 3: The bed needed to be 80% moisture, not 90% or the worms would drown. Too dry and they would dehydrate.

I opened the box, then made their bed.

When I turned around, worms were escaping.

The writhing mass looked like a 1970s horror movie.

At least they were alive.

I dumped the worms into their bed of newspapers and horse manure.

They began crawling out the holes of the lid.

I picked them up and put them back in the box, wondering why my worms were unhappy.

By the middle of the night, the worms had quit escaping.

Relief lifted the weight from my pillow.

I reminded myself that I keep lambs and calves alive. So far, both of my kids still breathe.

Still, I check on my worms every morning with my fingers crossed.