new project

I took these pictures on a grayer day so the crocuses are closed. I should've re-taken them today as they were all open. Oh well I'll maybe get them tomorrow!

So this weekend I was supposed to get it all done. Did I? nope.

its ok though, i got some things done that I didn't really need to get done!

I put together a worm bed. I love the worms. I want to check on them all the time, and they don't really like to be checked on, so I'll have to learn some restraint.

they are little guys.

I needed to plant the peas. So I checked all the black hoses, figured out that half were broken (this happens when you bury the hoses, and then stick stakes, or tomato cages into them), and figured out where they go. Then I got cow poop down on the bed for the peas, changed my mind where they were going, and then started to get the stuff out of the compost pile. After taking off the top layers (boy were they stinky!) i found that the bottom had actually composted and it was rich, black, not smelly compost! WoooHoooo!!!!! I think the pvc ventilator pipes helped compared to last year. I settled the uncomposted layers into a better situation to continue composting. And then started to put the compost on the pea bed.

I had already decided that I wanted to do better composting this year, and I did some searching on worm composting. I found out I should use a "red wiggler" worm and these could be purchased since regular earthworms don't work. I asked at the nursery if they sold them and the lady said no, but if I have a compost pile I could find the red wiggler worms in there. I had seen some last year so I figured I could get what was in there and hopefully "cultivate" them to where there was a big enough colony (around 500) to do some composting.

So, when I was getting the compost stuff to put on the pea bed, I found some! had to stop and shift through every spade full for wormies. I made a bed (newspaper strips soaked, and a couple handfulls of dirt). At first it wasn't very encouraging and I only got 30 worms before taking a break. When I went back I hit worm jack pot, and by the time I quit I had over 240 worms (i lost track a couple of times, but I think this is about where it is). I gave them some food but didn't have their new home ready until today when I got them bedded down proper like. I have another home ready for when in a 6-8 weeks when they will have composted down their food and bedding and hopefully multiplied!

After I got the bed for the peas ready I realized I had done the wrong one. :( Since I plant peas first every year I figured thats a good way to give different beds extra care every year, but instead I've done the same bed twice in a row. Oh well. There won't be quite enough of my own compost to do the whole new pea bed so I may buy some instead.

Cathy and I hung out on Friday afternoon. We went to a couple of local museums (only one was open). Went to the grocery store, and just got to talk a lot. It was fun!

Here is a display of woven Indian shoes. They must have been pretty tall because the shoes were bigger then Cathy's.

In honor of St. Patricks day (yes that was last week) I made corned beef, cabbage, and onion. YUM. I forgot to cook the potatoes and carrots to go with, but we were hungry and ate the cornedbeef sandwhiches and were satisfied :)