I have a confession to make. I may have blacked out, or forgotten that I grew up in farm country, been spending too much time indoors instead of outside, but I think I finally bought into to the messaging that is a constant in the background of our lives: buy something – it will solve your problem, whatever it is. Just buy something. We are consumers after all, why deny our destiny?
I write this as a reminder to myself and to all of us – earth worms live in the ground, near the surface. No need to pay $17 for them – they’re FREE!
Here’s how it all started, see if you can relate. My fabulous husband built a compost bin in the backyard and I have been dutifully filling it up with scraps and layers of dirt. But, I noticed, worms had not found my food scraps so not much composting was going on. I knew I needed worms, and fast. I’m on a schedule, my whole life is a schedule.
A few years ago a landscaper looked at my previous compost bin and announced that I needed red wigglers and that I could buy them at the nursery, which I did a few days later. And, boom! My compost bin was working and steam rising into the frosty fall air. So, that was stuck in my head as I thought about my current barren bin.
I had reallocated the guilt I was feeling about buying a plastic container made from fossil fuels. I told myself, I’ll repurpose it. And, home I went. Opened up the compose bin and dumped the worms in. Thankfully, my fabulous husband was standing nearby.
“What are you doing?” He asked as he looked in the bin.
“Adding worms,” I said, now feeling super stupid.
“They’re dead,” he said picking out a few and showing me their lifeless bodies.
My fabulous husband lives with his feet firmly on terra firma. Somehow a shovel materialized and he dug a scoop of dirt near the compost bin.
“There are worms in the dirt,” he said picking them from the dirt and throwing big, healthy, living worms into the bin.
So, there you have it. If you see a friend, like me, who has temporarily forgotten that worms live in the soil, right under our feet, remind them so they don’t accidentally perpetuate consumerism when there is no need.