I'm cool! Wow! I love that! As for your bin: A bin without a false bottom is fine as well really. I only want mine back because now I feel the bin is too deep but it really is a personal preference. As for upsetting the worms: I must upset mine a lot*grin* I've dumped my bin out to count how many worms I had(when I only had 21 worms). I've dumped it out to remove the flase floor(once I had bought my 1/2 lb). I just pulled almost eveything out again to install that screen including scraping food up out of the bin worms and all(and you should see the babies I have in there now!!!). I also dig around and check everything out once a week and take pictures(I've dug around the bin twice this week and I'll be feeding again tomorrow). Would my worms be happier if I didn't peek at them so much? Probably but I really don't worry about it...after all they are just worms and I am giving them a place to live and food to eat:) Thanks for your post! It's great to know someone thinks I'm cool! My own grade four kid just rolls her eyes at me and my husband thinks my "hobby" is strange:) Cass:)

First of all, thanks for all the replies. :=) The COW sits on a north terrace against a wall, so it basically doesn't get any sun. I feed what I get from the kitchen scraps (like melon peels or banana skins, scraps from onions, plums, apples, salad, etc.) plus the leaves and weeds that accumulate on the terrace. I live in Central Europe, so yes, winter will be coming. (Speaking of which: I do have an unheated basement which seems perfect if it gets too cold outside, but I don't want to introduce flies and vermin to the room. Any advice - e.g. "stop adding to the bin starting November" - to keep that from happening?) The worms I had I got from a live garden compost heap. I'm fairly sure that, at least as far as the worms are concerned, things went well in the beginning, because the tap water from underneath always contained a couple of living baby worms that fell down from above. As for the moskitos, I am assuming that the water from underneath probably hit the bottom of the first tray at some point. In the meantime I know that it's actually best to either keep the tap open, or to at least empty the sink frequently. (Reason I made that mistake is simple - when there's so much rain that the bottom sink fills up, there's obviously no need for me to use that water for manual irrigation. ;) Current conditions: I've noticed that the soil at the bottom of the sink seems very compact, almost like clay. This could be due to water hitting that area (months ago!), or also maybe because of the ants I had, who tend to break up soil into tiny bits. When I take soil from the bottom into my hands, I can squeeze a couple of drops out of it, so it's fairly wet, but I wouldn't call it completely soaked. What would worm cocoons look like? Can I see them, or are they too small? I would expect them to hatch if conditions are fine, so if they don't hatch, can I conclude that I still need to change the conditions for that to happen? I've heard about the paper and cardboard thing, so in the meantime, I'm adding that as well. Just not sure about the effect, because sometimes I wonder if the paper doesn't actually *store* water and therefore contributes to keeping the whole system wet, rather than dry. Moving the COW under cover is something I've thought about as well - I just wouldn't know where or how. So up to now, keeping the bottom pan empty, adding paper and putting the T-shirt on top are the most important changes I made over time. Problem is, I don't know if the changes aren't enough, or if they just came too late. If I knew for certain that there's simply too much water coming in from the top, I'd probably buy a small plastic table and move the bin underneath. The bulk of flies is really just fruit flies - many thousands of them. Other sorts of flies as well, but not the fat ones. ;) Seems to me like I don't only need to learn about what worms like, but also about what flies, moskitos and ants like (in order to NOT give it to them). For example, I'm assuming that my scraps may already be catching a couple of fruit flies in the kitchen, and then, when I add those scraps to the bin, I'm increasing the fruit fly population. So maybe I need to keep my scraps more or less sterile, in an airtight container, before they go into the bin. What exactly do you guys mean by "bedding"? I thought that's what you start out with, but which the worms munch up in a couple of weeks/months? Thanks again!

I haven't made a t-shirt quilt, yet. I will be making one early next year for my nephew, who will be graduating from high school. His mother has saved t-shirts from beginning school through this year. Everything I've read on the subject says to use a light weight, non woven, fusible interfacing. I can't imagine working with t-shirt fabric without a stabilizer, that would be very difficult.

Looks like quite a nice house...glad it found an old house lover to take good care of it. There is an incredible amount of labor in redoing an old house. I tell people that you have to really love an old house otherwise you will hate it. Trust me, right now I'm in the hate it phase of redoing endless amounts of trim...Who said french doors and 6 over 6 windows were such a nice feature? I like your wall color; it is similar to my new house project. I mix mine from white paint and miscellaneous tints but aim for something around that color. I have found that light blue/green/gray is an excellent choice in houses with a mix of stained trim and white. To my eye, many colors of beige just don't show off well against wood trim Ambiguous is a good description...depends on the lighting. From the vantage point of the dining room, looking through the hallway into the back bedroom, the paint appears to be two different shades. Just like my floor where the exact same stain is used on both sides of the line where living room meets dining room...looks like a totally different floor color depending on the viewpoint.