Yes, expectations, will always give way to the reality of actual life. The worm sellers, are always a bit overly discriptive, when stating the facts. How much they eat, in a given day, depends on their maturity, and habitat activity. New worm's, just like new people, need to settle into a new home, it takes time, and making reasonable judgements, as to what we can expect. I don't wish to burst your bubble, stomp on your expectations, but, everything being relative, as to how many worms did you receive, sellers like to use the number, 1,000 worm's to a pound. This would be a varity of worm's, in all stages, from hatchlings, through, adults. Also, the selection of worm's, by the grower, can vary considerably. Where in his batch/ colony, did he extract the worms from, mostly adult, or did he invade a nursery area, where there were more egg layers, than active, food consuming adults. The in between age groups, are probably the most consuming group of worm's. as they are too young to reproduce, yet they are growing at a rapid pace, for worm's, that is. The hatchlings, and juveniles, are the finishers, of the food group, just like nursing young humans, they are happy with smaller items, and not prone to attack large food items. Pulp in otherword.s, the (teenagers)junior's, are always hungry, and moving around, in search of food, the larve, or, hatchlings, tend to stay put a little longer. All of this is subject, to some speculation, of course. I haven't tried, to keep exact notes on the worm's activity, especially since they don't like light, ( I have resorted, to using a blue light, for feeding times)so when you open the top, they tend to scurry away, and this can really slow down the whole process too. All I can tell you is, that the results, are great, assuming you like eating fresh vegetables, from your very own garden, ie, by your very own effort. Keeping your eye, on the prize, is the only way to suceed at this venture. The sucess of your worm colony, will also depend greatly, as to what you feed them, and this is very important, stick with basic greens and shredded papers, avoid all acidic foods, citrus, tomato scraps, yeast (breads),egg shells need to be well crushed, maybe a little fresh grass cuttings, but, sparingly so. Two basic items, good air flow, and light moisture, I use a spritz type of spray bottle (like gentle rain). Even the type of water, like hard water, sulfer laiden water, can make a difference, plus the smell. By the way, if, your bin smells very strong, this would indictate improper feed mixtures, never add meat products, unless you don't mind some smell, because this will come with the meat by-products, and it doesn't really make the castings, all that much better, trust me on this. Bins containing meats, or, manure, will smell. If, you keep this out in the garage, or, some out of the way place, then its OK. However garages and sheds, tend to be too hot, and slow the worms down greatly. All of this sounds rather picky, but, from experience, I can tell you this, OK? The best growing enviornment, is the stacking bins, if, you don't already have these. Keep in cool and dark area's, max temp 70-75 degree's, and no lower than 60-65 degrees, at 50 degrees, or lower, all activity will cease, for the most part.covering with newsprint is ok, But, punch holes, for air flow. In the bottom tray, water colection area, put shredded paper, to fill the space. Worm's are somewhat clumsy, and they wiil fall into the space, adults can climb back up, but, junior's have trouble with this. If they are going to the water tray too much, this maybe a sign of needing water, or more air. They can drown quite easily, and they need to breathe air, they will also move down, to escape over heating. I have soil thermometers placed in my bins, too keep track of any heat buildup Many chapters, could be written, about all of this, but, if I can say this, patience is everything. By my own experience, starting up a new colony, with about 2,000 worm's, it took approximately one year, before the whole thing became really established, and consumed about one, to one and half pounds of food per day. At the one year stage, I guesstimate, I had about 8-10,000 worm's, in all stages of growth. Now, three years later, I have two stacks of bins, and consumption is quite brisk. How many worm's now?? Hard to know for sure, they don't exactly apply for green cards. At the moment I have about 50 lbs of castings in storage, for the new growing season. I use all of my product, minus any given, to my friends, for the making of hydroponic tea, as application for my garden plants. But, keep in mind, this three years later. Lest I forget, I haven't mentioned all of my Rose's, strawberry plants, friends flowers and gardens, that I tend to all summer. Its a toil of love, and I will never get rich in terms of money, from it, but, I have uddles of great picture's and fond memories, an, yes, maybe I will be missed someday, when I shuffle off this earth, that's nice too. All of my castings, are allowed to rest, before actual use, I have found, from time to time, several worms, who managed to survive on their own, and I take them from the stored castings, and put them into the established colonies. I never store my castings, in air tight containers, and there is always, a certain amount of undigested food, still in the mix. No doubt, these survivers, were just hatchlings, when the castings were removed from the colony. Wow, I know this a lot to take in, when first starting out, but, if you stick with it, you too, will learn all of these things. I'm always glad to converse, about this, and other gardening items. Like?? MY garden has no soil, in it, its a raised bed, yet, all of my plants go nuts, over it. Yes, I have a water collection tray (very large)under the rasied bed. My oldest bed is now eight years old, and still going storng. Its covered with vinyl siding, to match the house, and is kept covered in winter, plus a heat tape system, runs all through the compost.(Thanks to solar panels and a large battery storage system) Not biult all at once either, but, over time, and money available. That same battery system, has also been called on, during power outages, backed up by a (donated)garden tractor (stripped of its junk mower pan, It now sports a snow plow, and rear scraper) with built-in altenator(old truck part, bought at flea market, runs off of the old mower pan pulley) How about collecting rain water, and using it, instaed of tap water, OH YEA, baby, the results, tell the whole story. Besides, my indoor worm bins, I have a high population, of Earthworms, also. Higher the worm count, per cubic foot of material, makes for a fanastic garden yield, too. over the past ten years, I've probably added 500 Canadian crawlers to my lawn and garden box, plus another 500, cheap garden variety crawlers, as well. My lawn never browns, even in the hottest months, very little in the way of commerical chemiclas added. Very sharp blades, a grass hight of 3 1/2 inches, less mowing during July, August, even into September, sometimes. Adding Random bean plants into my garden box, not so much for eating, but, to add natural nutients to the soil. Thats an old farmers trick, sowing beans among the corn stocks. Resting a field, for one whole year from corn, and planting soy, for a plow down crop, yep, it works. Yep, a lot of talking, I know, but, if you love flowers and grass, like I do, there is never an end, of things to say. Enjoy spring and summer?? Its coming soon !

Nanny you might want to look into the pants that are made of wind resistant fabric as they are very light. Also the wool and silk underwear at Sierra is weightless and very warm. You wouldn't need jeans as they aren't warm anyway since they are cotton. I found that the convertible pants are essentially wind resistant fabric and therefore are very warm while taking up no room and drying in minutes. When it got really cold I put on a pair of tights under them and they were exceptionally comfortable..and I am a person that is ALWAYS cold. Heavy tops take up a lot of room and instead if you layer several light tops you get way more warmth and less weight plus more options. Just a thought to help you with your plans. Good Luck and have a wonderful time ! c

We paid about $1000/window in the SF Bay Area for wooden double-paned double-hung windows designed to match the originals, which was on the low end of the custom bids we got and on the high end of the out-of-the-box wooden windows we looked at. (We went custom because the rest of the windows are still original, so we didn't want the two we replaced to look out of place.) You can get simple wooden double-hungs for $500ish in NorCal if the city doesn't care that they be "authentic" (which they may not---in our city, you just aren't allowed to put the vinyl or aluminum sliders in old houses, but as long as it's generally in keeping with the look they don't care beyond that). I'd give the city a call to find out for sure, though.

We have that same tile on our shower floor in one of the bathrooms that hubby and I remodeled. Ours was a diy job and we are very experienced DIYers. When it came to laying that floor we struggled and struggled when we were doing our mock layout, we could NOT get it to where we couldn’t see seams. I threw my hands up in the air and proceeded to pull off every darn rock off each sheet and we hand set every darn rock. It turned out fantastic (except for a couple of spots where we wiped away too much of the grout during that part of the job, so water likes to pool in those low spots now... sigh... it was the first time we’d ever done that kind of floor though, live and learn, and maybe one day we will chip out the grout there and redo it, for now I just use a little extra bleach when I clean there.) But yeah, I’ve seen more jobs done incorrectly with those sheets of random rocks than done correctly. I hear there’s a way to just pull of some of the rocks but not all of them so that you kind of fill in those lines, but I discovered that after the fact.