Lois - It is realy everything I can do to keep from ordering "something" this year. I am not moving or at least I hope not but Dad is not well and I don't know what is up for the coming year. Many changes I suspect. I am only getting my reserves and some annuals. I doubt that I will have even tomatoes this year unless I grow them on the deck. We are hoping to buy this old house from the rest of my sibs as we are all part owners. I have been here taking care of Dad for 5 years and the flowers are mine! We would like to rebuild and design my new yard/gardens. As it is I will have to move a lot of my Peonies and Irises in order to build or I will be sending a lot of you people some very expensive plants if we don't stay here! Maybe I will rent a field or two. :) Till then, all my babies are in holding beds. :D Ginny P.S. Anyone know where crazygardener has been?

Here is my Wild Horses. I held up very well to wet and to heat. I bought mine on the LA and planted this spring. It was a nice clump when I received it. Put up 9 scapes and flowered from Jun 27 to Aug 8. The scapes were shorter this year than typical for others growing it in this region but the flowers were large, probably just short because it was new. There were a few days when it was more peach than its normal creme and I am certain it was weather related.

I can't agree that I don't really "care" what they eat. I'm certainly not trying to turn this into a full-fledged debate (not that I would ever get offended by having one unless someone get's offensive during it), but if I'm going to undertake any kind of 'project' (especially one that consists of playing with moldy, smelly 'waste' on a regular basis - LOL), regardless of my reasoning for doing so, I like to edumacate myself as much as possible on the information surrounding the particular subject so I can be the 'best' I can be at it. I guess I'm just the sort of person that likes continuously learning new things in as much depth as possible and strives for some extent of excellence in all areas of my life... whatever those may be. That said, I originally got into composting (as a whole) for several reasons. First and foremost, I started my first garden last year, and decided to go totally organic/non-GMO. In that quest, I began composting... primarily for soil addendum due to what I've been dealt by nature in my yard, but also, as a positive byproduct, to reduce my household's overall 'footprint' in some way (no matter how small). So for me, vermicomposting is not just a 'hobby', but I'm actually concerned about the end result and/or finished product, which is why threads such as these interest me. Bottom line (for me), I just want to understand what I can about the topic as a whole, and perhaps, eventually, figure out what is, indeed, "fact", and what is "faith". Unfortunately, I'll never be able to travel down the gut (not that I'd probably survive the gizzard) of one of my worms and see the process firsthand, so I will have to take a few things on "faith" that I read along the way... but despite that limitation, I am certainly not above discussing if what I have read, wherever, is commonly accepted in "faith" by others more experienced than me. All that clarified, I will at this point agree with certain things discussed here: 1) Worms do 'eat' bacteria, but not ONLY bacteria (which is what I initially assumed you were saying in your first post) 2) They do NOT 'eat' anything that is not broken down into "RTE" 'food' 3) Everything organic can and will eventually break down into RTE form Now given #3, horse manure may indeed be a better IMMEDIATE food (or more readily accepted) than non-RTE substitutes, but does that necessarily make it "better" for the end product... the castings? Not saying it does or doesn't (as I honestly don't know with any certainty at this point), and since the worms obviously like it (whether in captivity or the wild), I can only assume (or take on "faith", as I've yet to feed mine any) that it is, in fact, "good" in some sense of the word. Then again, in their natural habitat, there is rarely the opportunity for them to encounter what we feed them from our kitchens, so it's also possible they simply migrate to whatever is available. Either way, I am still not sure that the topic of the thread has been fully determined, however... and unless that is eventually accomplished here, why are we bothering to waste valuable hours of our days writing about (and purely speculating on) it?

Jas, about the "threw together thing" ... the poster did not imply that the pieces themselves were thrown together -- it was a question about whether both pieces were made by the same artist or were matched up later. Everyone in this thread has been complimentary about the pieces; no one has said they are junk. There were and are many, many "nameless" talented artists and craftsmen. Without more information, it is impossible to track down the origins of your piece without more information. WERE you told anything about them when you bought them? If not, perhaps the best idea would be to find someone who can ID the wood for you. That's not going to pinpoint the artist or even the country of origin, but it could tell you what region of the world the wood came from. If you really want more specifics than that, you could hire a dendrologist to analyze the wood, but that will still only tell you more precisely where the tree was from and possibly when it was cut down. Chances are the item was carved close to where the tree grew.