Connected World of Worms

I was setting up my Saturday Great Falls farmers market booth when my phone rang at 7 a.m.

My caller ID said Roxanne from Medicine Hat, Alberta, was calling me.

Surprised, confused and intrigued, I answered.

I had only actually seen Roxanne, once, last August, when she showed off her worm farm and stretched my soil microbiology education.

Words and ideas had tumbled over one another, no time to elaborate before another one popped up.

I wanted her world to overlap with mine, but I didn’t know how to make that happen.

Now Roxanne needed help.

I was thrilled that she still had my phone number and would ask me for help.

Roxanne helps U.S. and Canadian oil companies remediate sites with vermicast and worms, turns other people’s compost into vermicast and directs a research lab.

She has a couple of major projects coming soon so she needed more worms fast.

She ordered 11 buckets from a worm farm in Sonoma, California, and planned to grow enough worms for her research projects from that starter batch.

Roxanne is no newbie to importing and exporting worms and vermicast.

Last August, when I naively attempted to bring her vermicast from Alberta back to Montana, the U.S. agricultural inspector called Roxanne to be sure this stuff wasn’t dirt.

Canadian dirt isn’t allowed into the U.S. and the Canadians don’t think much of our soil bacteria and the potential for it to spread, either.

Roxanne had filled out all of the forms, submitted them and pointed her bright blue Subaru toward Sonoma.

When she pulled out of her driveway, she didn’t know international importing rules had changed.

Apparently, just like the rest of us, Roxanne doesn’t routinely read the U.S. Federal Register.

Five days later, she was sitting in a motel room in Shelby, Montana, waiting for the right inspector to sign the right paperwork and listening to the clock ticking.

Officials kept promising she would have authorization to bring her worms into Canada within the next 12 hours.

Or the next 12 hours.

Or the next.

Worms are pretty good travelers, but they can only tolerate about six days on the road.

Roxanne’s worms kept bombarding her with questions -- when will we get there? How much longer? Can we pee in the bucket?

She worried about the quiet worms the most. They were dying.

By Saturday morning, Roxanne was out of 12-hour delays. The inspector who held her paperwork wouldn’t come back to work until Tuesday.

Roxanne was not going to get this batch of worms to Medicine Hat.

At least, not still alive.

She called to offer all 11 buckets of worms to me.

But the worms were stressed.

They needed space to crawl around and needed it now.

Specifically, they needed a moist pile of dirt at least 3 feet high.

She would deliver the worms 35 miles to the ranch if I had the right habitat.

I have a tall pile of sheep manure – a red wiggler’s favorite kind – but I was 70 miles from the ranch.

I called my mom.

In Conrad, my mom waved two shovels at Roxanne’s Subaru then led her to my manure pile.

Two hours later, my mom’s text said the worms were happy.

Three hours later, Roxanne appeared at my farmers market booth.

Our worlds overlapped again and we had a grand time, once again words and ideas coming fast and furious.

I offered to dig up the worms and bring them to her worm farm, but the worms were already contaminated with my U.S. dirt.

So we will think of other ways to collaborate.

Because when the universe offers a second chance, I better take it.