Day One: Of Vermicelli and Vermiculture

This is not a New Year’s resolution of any sort. It is more of an experiment. A practice. An attempt at a discipline.  I’m going to endeavor to write this blog every day for three weeks – from now until Spring classes begin on January 9. A friend took on this challenge earlier this year and I admired her for doing so. Then I’ll see what happens next. Perhaps it will be a habit by then (although research has demonstrated that 21 days to a habit ideas is not exactly correct -- 18-66 days seems to be more accurate). 

One thing this surely means is that my entries are going to be even more mundane than usual. That’s really ok with me. I’m pretty well convinced that the ordinary is where everything that matters happens anyway. I’m not too pressured to pursue profundity. If it ever shows up, so be it. So today is mostly about garbage and worms.

I have made another semi-solitary visit to the farm, preparing for a gathering of friends here later in the month. It is semi-solitary because Cole has accompanied me, and one is not truly alone if a dog is involved. He mostly keeps to himself, doesn’t say much, and only occasionally becomes needy for attention.

I went to bed really early last night, and so I woke up before the sun, made coffee, and settled down to read. Early morning reading is another practice I’m attempting to regain during the winter break. This year I want to read through the Year B Daily Lectionary Readings and I have been neglecting the practice of daily Bible reading since just before Thanksgiving. So I sat down and read through all the Advent readings up to today.  That was both a pleasant and powerful experience. The passages were familiar and well-marked in my Bible (except one in Habakkuk I hadn’t read in a while). The Old Testament readings majored on the prophets and their words about God’s plan and promises for his people – Isaiah, Zephaniah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Micah, and Malachi all had something to add. The New Testament readings focused on Christ’s promised return, and today, the narrative of Gabriel’s announcement to Mary. When I had caught up, I wanted to keep going. Listening to this other narrative about another King rather than the crazy narrative I hear daily during the political insanity of an election year was a welcome change of atmosphere and hope. I feel more ready to celebrate Christmas.

I took a break and made myself some pancakes – something I have never done as far as I can remember. Wait, now that I think about it, I do remember cooking pancakes a couple of times as a teenager. But it has been a while. I shared one with Cole, and then he and I walked a half mile down the road cleaning up litter along our property’s frontage on County Road 401. I took a 30 gallon plastic garbage bag with me and had it filled before we’d made it three quarters of the way. I left it on the roadside and continued to gather trash into piles every few yards. Then, since we had to walk back anyway, we decided to do the same on the other side of the road. I felt like Forrest Gump on his run. I couldn't stop When we got back to the house, I dug out three more bags from under the kitchen counter and drove back up the road gathering the trash.  Soft drink cans and plastic bottles, packaging from fast food, and beer cans and bottles made up 90% of the debris. I don’t get it – the sense that it is somehow ok to roll down your window and throw your trash wherever you please, that the world is your trash can, that you can Mess with Texas. I’m not so much outraged as disgusted.

When we were done I drank a limeade (I’m nearly addicted to Simply Limeade), and read a chapter of Dallas Willard’s Knowing Christ Today. I enjoyed his argument for the existence of God based on first cause. I think that’s the first time that argument seemed persuasive to me rather than question-begging. Cole found the argument dense.

After a lunch of leftovers from last night’s whole wheat vermicelli, I put some pinto beans on to cook, and then decided to drive to the Lighthouse Quik Shop, a bait house in Elmendorf, TX near Lake Calaveras, to buy some worms. I wasn’t planning a fishing trip. I’m working on another experiment – vermiculture.  Vermis is the Latin word for “worm.” (Hence, vermicelli are “little worms.”) A friend of ours at a church dinner club two weeks ago inspired me. All of us around the table were discussing home gardens and organic practices and she said she’d begun to raise her own earthworms in a plastic box and it was easy. The earthworms serve as a kind of fast compost pile. You put the organic materials in the box with them and they turn it into castings (earthworm poop) in no time, and plants love the stuff. I made a visit to YouTube and found plenty of videos providing the necessary instruction. I had an old plastic box at the farm, so why not?

I bought about a hundred worms (red wigglers are preferred to night crawlers) and today’s edition of the San Antonio paper, drilled holes in the bottom of the box, shredded the paper and dampened it, added the worms and some food scraps (they don’t like citrus peals or onion skins, I'm told), put the lid back on and left them in the garage.  They need a little moisture added occasionally. They will multiply, eat our leftovers, produce castings, and provide for our spring garden. I’ll take them back to Waco with me when we head that direction.

I finished the beans, read a chapter on our inherent longing for justice from N. T. Wright’s Simply Christian, and then lay on the couch and thought about what I’d been reading (that’s code at our house for a nap).

Somewhere in the middle of all that, I received an email from my son with his design drawings for a new patio and outdoor kitchen at the farm, which may become reality this spring. I called and made an appointment with a recommended landscape company to come out tomorrow and make a bid. And I received an anticipated call from my doctor with good news from some recent test results.

What I didn’t do today was a single thing on my to do list, which included revising the syllabus for three of my courses and organizing my financial record in anticipation of tax preparation. Somehow, there were more interesting things to do, like vermiculture.

Tomorrow.