Hot, Hot, Hot

That's what the days have been like for the past 4 - 5 weeks. Sorry it has been awhile sense the last post. But the good news is I now have Internet access at home and a newly loaded computer.
Mark did the work and wiped my hard drive clean and loaded a new Windows-7 onto the system for me. He even gave me a flat screen monitor to use (its on lone, as he isn't using it right now). Also he had me move my computer to my bedroom (its closer to his house) and we got a wireless mortem and hooked it up to my computer. Now I can pick up the signal fro his wireless system and surf the Internet all I want. So I should be able to make posts on a more regular basis and download pictures allot more. This was all a birthday present from Mark and Terri. Pretty cool!!!.
I think a update on the worms and the compost tumblers are in order.
The worms had me worried for awhile. As stated in a earlier post I have them in a bottomless wooden box (3' X 7' X 14 ") and I didn't see allot of action going om. So I E-mailed Bently Christy (his web site is redwromcoposting.com) for advice. He told me to continue to add bedding and food material to the bed and to add lots of water. The worm need a very moist inviorment (as they breath thew their skin) to thrive. Well he was right, I added lot of cardboard (egg cartons, pizza boxes and the like) and food materials (coffee grounds, tea bags, kitchen scraps and horse manure) and I covered the whole bed with fresh cut grass. And then I watered the heck out of it, adding about 10 - 15 gallons every other day. I let the worms get comfortable with the new stuff for a few days and then I did some digging around. The numbers have differently increased. Lots of newly hatched small worms and more adult breeders. Still do not see allot of eggs, but by the number of young worms, eggs are being produced. And food material is disappearing at an alarming rate! Egg cartons and toilet paper rolls disappear in a day or so and the amount if horse manure keeps going down. That's a good thing! Tuesday is my day off and I will spend it trucking loads of horse manure to the farm so it can age a little bit before being given to the worms.
The compost tumblers have be in operation for about 3 weeks now and I have harvested the first batch (Three 5 gallon buckets each barrel) and gave that to the worms (let them eat it and turn it into worm casings for me). The barrels get quite heavy as they fill with materials, but I have found that this is due to the water that the materials release as the break-down and if I let it dry for a day or so, its not too bad on the back.
Well that's about it for now. Check back in a few days for more about the farm.