by Wonder Worman | Oct 31, 2010 | Red Wiggler World
BOO! Happy Halloween!
Have I told you lately how Red Wigglers love pumpkins? Give them a delicious post Halloween treat tomorrow. There’s no need to slice and dice. You can quarter the pumpkin or put it in whole. You’ll be amazed at how quickly they will devour it. They’ll stop feasting on the scraps in the bin and migrate to the pumpkin.
If you don’t have a worm bin or compost pile and you live in Bend, give them to me. My Red Wigglers would be delighted. Leave me a comment and we can set something up!
by Wonder Worman | Oct 29, 2010 | Less in the Landfill
This is the aftermath of fun times! A pile of dead batteries that once gave life to wireless video game controllers and wireless mice now sit on the kitchen table. As you can see, we are not loyal to one brand. We grab what is on sale and also have a few rechargeable batteries. Unfortunately, we don’t have many charging stations to satisfy our immediate need when one battery dies, especially during an epic battle in Halo! (a really cool game by the way. I admit. I have joined in on a few matches, getting my booty whipped and laughing as it’s happening) So, we resort to buying mass quantities of AA batteries.
Just last year, I would toss these into the trash not even giving it a second thought. Now running a composting business, I TRY my best to watch what is heading to the landfill. Realizing we can’t feed batteries to the Red Wigglers, we bagged them under the kitchen sink next to the other recycling containers. Yesterday the bag was about to bust so I called the landfill to see if they could be put at the curb for pickup. Nope, they have to be dropped at the Hazardous Waste Building, an annex next to the Recycling Center.
Before taking them, I dumped them onto the table to get a picture for my post. I couldn’t believe how many we bought over the past year!
Yuck! I really wish I put something on the table before I dumped them. This battery was already leaking the bad stuff! What it is….. I don’t really know to be honest with ya! I just have a feeling it can’t be good because my hair had a run in with a dead car battery that was stored in the back of my trunk when I skipped high school! ‘nough said!
Bottom Line: Bring your batteries to the Hazardous Waste Department (just that name let’s me know…the things inside the batteries are not good for the planet!)
The Red Wigglers will devour a few non food items, like coffee grounds and filters, newspapers, eggshells, toilet paper rolls, and compostable baby wipes, but they will not munch on batteries! Who would blame them?
by Wonder Worman | Oct 28, 2010 | Less in the Landfill
For the past 3 months in the Wonder Worman household, we have been been using cloth napkins and rags instead of paper towels and paper napkins. I wanted to think of another way to cut back on the amount of trash we were contributing to the landfill. Composting the food waste with the Red Wigglers is going well. I have occasionally thrown in some napkins from dinner but never those with cleaning residue so I decided to use the cloth solution.
We already had a stash of cloth napkins given to us as gifts for the holidays, house warming, and Cinco de Mayo (My favorite time of the year!!). We also had a variety of rags from old towels and t-shirts. I thought I was set and didn’t need to purchase any more. Well, that changed this week. I started thinking about how I had increased the amount of laundry loads. Now, I was worried about the water and energy being used to keep these clean! I was determined to find a solution to increase our supply of napkins therefore decreasing the amount of times the napkins and rags needed to be washed. So, I decided to make my own napkins. We have a beautiful sewing machine that was given to Little a for Christmas. She uses it often to create pillows and “fun stuff”. Now, it was my turn to make some napkins. For those of you that know me, I AM NOT a person that sews, but I was determined to give it a try for the sake of the planet! I did some on line searching and found a cool site! Link is below.
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| I picked this fallish fabric! |
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| Set the template on the backside of the fabric and traced with a pencil. I don’t own fabric chalk?! what is that any way?? |
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| Fabric cut in squares. I would’ve called it done but knew the sides would fray. |
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| Finished! I used Little a’s orange thread! Thought the contrast was cool. Plus, it was already set up on the machine, and I have trouble rethreading the bobbin and then threading the needle and all of that sewing stuff that you have to do on the machine! |
Here’s the link (click here) to the site where I found the set of instructions. Really quick and easy! Next set of napkins will be made from Max’s too small oxford shirts! Recycling our clothes will be fun and will give us something to talk about when friends and family come over. Don’t worry, I won’t use our underwear!
by Wonder Worman | Oct 28, 2010 | Red Wiggler World
Have you ever wondered what the “p” and the “H” in pH stand for? Well, I’ll give ya a little science lesson, rather a brief science lesson. The “p” represents potential, and the “H”is for Hydrogen. Basically, in Wonder Worman terms it is a scale used to determine the amount of Hydrogen ions in the substance you are testing. The lower the Hydrogen ions… the substance is more acidic and the higher the Hydrogen ions… the substance is more basic. The ph scale ranges from 0-14. The lower the number = more acidic the higher the number = more basic. If you come up with lucky 7, you have a balanced amount of hydrogens. The substance you are testing is neutral which, by the way, is the ideal environment for Red Wigglers.
I am sure a lot of you remember using the ph strips in Science class! They would turn a really cool shade of blue or red, and then you would check the scale on the canister. Oooh, I loved doing that stuff, and I still do. Instead, I am now using this digital meter called “rapitest” the name reminds me of a home pregnancy test and the probe reminds me of a thermometer among other things, but I won’t go there.
Over the weekend, I tested the pH of one of the bins. I like the fact that I don’t have to compare colors, and I am given a number because lately I have been second, maybe third or even fourth guessing every decision I am making. Looking at “shades” of colors would have be wondering, “Is it a true red? or Is it pink?” My head would be going round and round and round and round.
So here’s what you do….
1) Turn the meter on! See the pretty turquoise button or is it green, or aqua? lol….. It always defaults to 7.0.
2) Put the meter in whatever you are testing and twist it around
3) After about 5 -10 seconds, it should flash and register the reading.
Basically, it’s really simple to operate!
These are Wonder Worman directions. It comes with more elaborate ones.
Well after testing, the bin registered a pH of 6.5! Pretty good. I am going to keep on feeding ’em what I’ve kept on feeding ’em!
Happy Wormin’! Just in case you want to check your pH, click on the handy link below or check your local garden store!
by Wonder Worman | Oct 21, 2010 | Red Wiggler World, Worman Cooks
Holy Moly! I chowed this delicious acorn squash in, uh…., under a minute. More like 20 seconds, seriously. I had this amazingly tasty veggie all to myself. The kids were at school, and my hubby is on a mini vacay! Glad they weren’t here to witness my slurping and totally awful manners!
This super veggie is loaded with bazillion amounts of Vitamin A which is super awesome for your skin. Today, I cooked it in the oven at 400 with about a cup of water in the dish. After 30 min, it was soft and ready to be inhaled. Before the feast, I doused it with 2 teaspoons of brown sugar. In the past, I have added butter and some maple syrup. Today, I skipped out on that stuff. It would have taken too much time to get all that out, and I was starving.
So now these scraps will be on their way to the wiggler bins. Just giving them a tidbit, a little teaser because in the next few weeks, they will be enjoying huge amounts of pumpkins and gords!
