Lisa, Well, I have tried the light on, the light off, etc. and the only difference I see is if the light is on and the sun porch door is open, bugs are attracted to the light and the bat is attracted to the bugs. I wouldn't even care about the bat if it wasn't for the fact that they carry rabies. You know, it would be just my luck to have the bat become rabid and the cats find the bat, etc. The cats have had rabies shots but who wants to deal with a potentially rabid bat? We've had bats flying around our property in the evenings ever since we moved here and I love having them since they eat tons of insects, but this is the first time I know of that one has tried to take up residence in our house. We have every kind of fly outside that you can imagine, so I guess soldier flies wouldn't gross me out, though their larvae would. When Chris was younger and in school and they had to do an insect collection for Biology, he and a bunch of his friends could get all the insects they needed by visiting my garden and our back porch, which was just a screened-in porch back then. I remember they'd catch a bunch of stuff and put the insects in ziplock bags (one bug per bag) and put them in the freezer to kill them. We also occasionally caught and "saved" bugs for the children of Tim's coworkers who lived in beautiful, "tidy" city neighborhoods where everyone sprayed for bugs and kids had a hard time finding enough insects to do their insect collection. The kids were amazed at how many different kinds of flies they caught. Sometimes they'd call me and say "hey, this is a rare and endangered species of fly....am I going to be in trouble for having it in my collection?" I was shocked that any fly species was rare or endangered since we have about a billion of them per acre here. Okay, that's an exaggeration....maybe a million per acre. I always told them to ask their teacher and, as far as I know, none of them got in trouble since you cannot possibly know before you catch a fly that it is going to be one considered rare or endangered. Their favorite ones were the gigantic horse flies that are larger than the big black-and-yellow bumblebees. During the years all those insect collecting kids were working on insect collections, I almost hated to open my freezer door because inevitably there were zip-lock bags of frozen insects in there. I remember thinking "If we die suddenly and someone has to clean out that freezer, they sure will wonder about the bags of insects, won't they?" Moni, Hope the bike ride was fun and welcome home! Sheila, I agree that if 18 year-olds think you are strange, there you are just perfectly normal. For me, the fun thing is that by the time they are 22 or 24 or 26 years old, they finally realize that you were a cool and wonderful person all along and they cannot even remember why they thought you were strange! It is funny how we old fogies became cool and appreciated more and more as our son and his friends got older. I had to laugh this summer. Our son always has appreciated having a garden for fresh produce and enjoys most of the stuff I can, though I cannot get him to appreciate home-canned catsup. He is a professional firefighter and he works 24-hour shifts, so they cook a lot of their meals at the fire station, and he sometimes takes in home-grown produce or home-canned food to go with their meals. Still, I've always thought that he sort of thought his gardening- and canning-obsessed mother was a relic from the dark ages. So, anyhow, this summer he mentioned that some of his friends have taken up gardening and canning and were having a ball, and had given him some of their home-canned food to take to work. Suddenly, I was even more "cool" and in-sync with his adult friends than ever before. I just grinned. It is fun when you get to make the transition from weird to cool. lol Dawn

Thanks for the links--been looking for good forums and found several that weren't good for advice. I've bookmarked several. I was annoyed at my plastic jug because I couldn't get it sealed and I wanted a sealed unit to bury. Added a few drops of hydrogen peroxide to avoid any algae, bacteria, etc. and wouldn't hurt the worms if it did leak. Finally got it sealed--yea! The worms do love it; I find them all gathered around it each time I look to see how things are going. I'm using an old laundry basket, lined with cardboard, and put inside a kitchen cabinet now. They were in a plastic tote until now. I had no holes drilled in the plastic tote, but monitered the moisture carefully. I drilled a few small holes in the bottom of the basket and put it on an old tote lid. Now things get buried directly into the bin. I started out with bedding of cardboard, newspaper, and mostly oak leaves--add a few handfulls of sand, and soil. Worms seemed to be happy from day one--never tried to escape. Been almost 3 months now--and no where near ready to harvest yet. Maybe I haven't kept them warm enough yet? Then again I did notice lots of babies in pockets after reading through some other posts. Started out with 1 lb. of redworms, and hoping for an increase. Only me, but I eat a lot of veggies, and make most stuff from scratch. Don't add dairy, meat, or oil. Sometimes if I get too much I put it in the blender--really gotta watch the blender; can burn up a motor quick. I need more worms! LOL! Hence why I was looking for heat in winter.

thanks leearnold! do you think that there might not be enough venting on the cedar box surrounding the plastic bucket? there is no mold in the bucket, it grows from the bottom drainage holes in an icicle formation on the underside of the plastic bucket! thanks again!

November 19, 2005 Week 15 I hope giving the worms the rotten strawberries wasn't a mistake. There's still a lot of bedding in there that isn't broken down, and aren't they supposed to use that as a Plan B food supply? I'd better check on them. No worms visible up here, they probably heard me coming, but there are clearly castings in this new bedding. They've been here. The rotten strawberries are gone, only seeds left and not many of those. I guess the worms haven't been overfed; they seem to have been hungry. Or maybe they just like strawberries. I prefer blueberries, but to each their own. The worms are looking healthier. Their colour is back to normal and they don't look so fat. But... something seems off. Jabba! Jabba, NOOOO! He's gone. Jabba's gone. There are only three worms in here. He can't have escaped; I take care not to let the worms wander while I check out the tub, and the air holes are way too small for his impressive girth. He must have died, broken down and been eaten. Why did Jabba die? What do I know? The others didn't murder him; they're detritivores, and they don't have knives, or guns, or teeth. There isn't enough population or money in there for them to have developed politics or unions yet. Jabba was huge, massive, one could even say overweight. The moisture and temperature of the bin have been kept within range. The worms have plenty of bedding that isn't broken down... hmmm. That bedding may still be intact, but the colour is awfully similar to the colour of their poop. The worms have been in there a hell of a long time with no bedding change or new feeding; I overfed the bin early and left it alone. They clearly prefer the new bedding and the "fresh" strawberries over what they already had. The worms got big, but they also got weird. Maybe... maybe the worms have done all they can with this old bedding. The system is close to being sealed, they don't have allies like isopods and stuff to shred things apart and ease processing. Maybe the stuff is so saturated with their leavings (toxic waste to them, same as everything else with its own excrement) that they can't eat or live in it anymore. Maybe Jabba was so big because he was bloated and sick. Okay big guy, I hear you. Your death won't have been in vain. Time to prepare something new for the survivors. Lizard unrelated, he just showed up while I was doing prep. Dig all that poisonous old bedding out, leaving just the new stuff. This is a good time to take inventory and see what I've got. Only three worms, but a little bit healthier, and one cocoon. No, make that four cocoons. I don't know whose they are, but I choose to believe they're all offspring of Jabba, knowing he had little time left and getting busy as possible. I'll take better care of your descendants, Jabba, your lineage won't end on my watch. New bedding will be a mix of egg carton cardboard, dry dead grass, and assorted shredded leaves and wood chips from a local tree trimmer's recent dump in my driveway. Wet it down with rain water, dump in a can of UCG for food, and a lot of ground egg shell for grit and pH buffering. Throw in the old bedding for microbial inoculation now that they finally got it balanced to stop stinking the place up. Mix it together, and... that's a lot of coffee grounds, this stuff is stained so dark it looks like it's already somewhat decayed. I'd better let it sit for a few days in case it heats up.