Well, josh, you had two problems - worm mess and soggy soil. I'll be the first to agree that an excess of earthworms can create a real mess. It appears you resolved the worm mess. But, your after pic makes it clear that you still have the soggy soil issue. So now you have just one problem. That may be the nature of the beast due to persistent rainfall coupled with the local terrain and grade on your lot, assuming you don't have any water system leaks, either plumbing or irrigation related. With the soggy soil and your mower you have another problem in the works, and that is soil compaction. From the ruts evident in all of your pics, it is also clear that running that robust (and probably heavy) mower over the saturated soil is leading to compaction. When the rains abate, which at some point they will, you should welcome the return of the earthworms. They are your best and cheapest solution for compacted soil.

Hi Elbourne, Sorry to hear about the Big Bolt. There is a very good forum dedicated entirely to Vermiculture and these sorts of issues (I listed it below). Really nice folks over there, someone might just have the right answer for you. I'm an ardent vermicomposter myself. My first thoughts about a possible cause are these: 1. Perhaps the manure wasn't entirely "finished." I've heard that unfinished manure can easily get too hot for the worms in bins in certain circumstances. 2.I second Kimmsr, perhaps it was too wet. Too much food can cause this sometimes; this can also heat things up and/or go anaerobic which causes problems. Perhaps the newspaper was too wet when you put it in, or the drainage holes got clogged? Window screen (non-metal!) or pantyhose can be good filters for drainage holes. Perhaps everything else was okay, but there wasn't enough ventilation and it just got too hot and/or wet from that. 3. Perhaps there was some sort of chemical or contaminant in the manure. Was the cow/horse/animal who supplied the manure treated with antibiotics or de-wormers? This might be a bit of a stretch though, I know people often use manure without problems. 4. Perhaps the location was too hot. Summer in Mississippi is just hot to begin with! My worms really don't seem to like temps above 80 at all. They seem happiest at about 70. Perhaps warm outside temps combined with the bin heating up from food, bedding, or ventilation issues? One thing seems definite, the worms needed out of whatever was going on in the bin. It might be a good idea to temporarily house them someplace else until the mystery is solved. I have used moistened coconut fiber, "coir," from the pet store as bedding for a long time, and it seems to make a pretty safe substrate (not saying anything against the manure, just thought if you had to do a quick 2nd home for them it might be an easy bedding to get quickly). Last of all, this kind of thing happens to all of us at some point! A lot of vermicomposters keep a couple different bins going just in case something bad happens in one, they have a back up. Vermicomposting really is the easiest thing though, and once the bumps get smoothed out I hope you enjoy it as much as I do! Welcome to the world of worms, come say hi to us on the Vermi Forum :) Here is a link that might be useful: Gardenweb Vermicomposting Forum

A blanket statement that worms do not belong in North America is simply wrong. But that's not what the writer of the Boston Globe article, nor the researchers interviewed have stated. What they have stated is that the forests in what had been glaciated areas (ie., the forests northeast of New Jersey) evolved earthwormless, and developed into ecosystems where a thick duff layer always existed, and so had a variety of organisms that depended (& still depend) upon that duff layer for existence. The earthworms destroy that duff layer, radically altering the forest by diminishing its habitat quality.

I've noticed a few worms almost always crawl out when I first set up a new bin. But after that, they eventually settle down and decide they like it in the bin after all. And I'm not too concerned about earthworms indoors. They don't do any damage and they just squirm into a corner to shrivel up and die. :'( Poor things! If I can catch them quickly I can throw them back into the bin before they die, but I'm not always so quick to find them. I'm not grossed out though so it doesn't bother me. For more squeamish people it might be a bit of a shock to see an earthworm squirming across their carpet, though! I once had a dream where I got up in the morning and there were thousands of earthworms all over the place--in my carpet, squirming up my walls and dropping from my ceiling! It was like a scene from an Indiana Jones movie! But of course nothing remotely like that has ever happened in real life. The most worms I ever found outside of the bin were 4 once.