Little Storping-in-the-Swuff

Bit of a break out bid today, on the minus side.  Three casualties.

Inside, the worms are abandoning the compost and climbing up the lid. I think they’re finding it too damp. They get two sports supplements from the Guardian, plus a special internet pullout.

Two pluses:

• They’re giagantsomely fat and there’s approximately a bgzillion of them.  Despite being over rich in lemon rind and onion peel, my diet suits them.
• There are some teeny tiny ones, which can only be taken as evidence of procreation.  Implies a happy and expanding colony.

Something of a triumph: two weeks in and they’re not dead. There are some flies in there though; apparently that’s avoidable by putting a layer of paper or soil over the food.

Sealed inside their little bin, there’s no way of knowing whether the worms are thriving or shriveling without popping it open and having a look. To alleviate the anxiety I had to take a little peek. All the worms have climbed up the sides and are hanging onto the lid or trying to escape. Is it too wet? Too hot? Or too acid? Don’t they like the pink fur apple potatoes I gave them? Are they offended I gave them an out of date copy of the Guardian?

Fortunately, it’s apparently just as stressful being a worm in a new environment and other wormers have had this problem with far worse consequences (”They should have stayed in the wormery for crying out loud! It was built for them. It’s a worm nirvana. A wormana.”) At least none of mine have got out. Yet.

My “junior” wormery arrived. So called because it’s the compact version, and very neat it is too.

The stresses of being a wormer are considerable, however. “Start them with a few handfuls of kitchen waste then don’t feed again for a week” the booklet says, but the binmen came yesterday and I don’t want them to starve. In the end I gave them a few scraps and they’ll get more when it comes - I’ll just have to hope I don’t over feed them, but I don’t want to risk them starving either!

“Avoid extremes of temperatures, especially when starting out” the booklet says. There goes my plan to stick them in the garden - they’ll have to stay indoors for a bit if they want 18oC… At least until they’re established. Nor will they be able to stay out when there’s a frost, or remain in the sunny spot I’d picked over the summer. They don’t like it too acid, either, so easy on the lemon peel. I gave them some pages from the Guardian. Apparently they like to read, but they don’t like it to be too right wing.

Vine seems to have an instinct to grow in the warmest place. When you’re trying to do your growing on English soil, it’s sensible to go indoors.

I’ve had to commit an amputation today, the weather’s so bad I’ve had to close the window.

The frog doesn’t look too upset by it, but he’s got a huge extra limb… are my frogs mutating a fifth leg?

Looking after the young…

Hugh FW provide pear recipes almost too late. I’ve had a plentiful crop this year, but they’ve almost all been eaten/frozen/given away/blown away. Which is a pity, because Hugh’s recipes look great, especially the fried spiced.
The only reason I haven’t tried this yet is that I’ve been feeling so grotty that I’ve spend 50% of the weekend so far sleeping and most of the rest of the time lying about (The Ambassadors of Death is a great way to take your mind off being ill, but may cause the unwary - me - to add loss of colour vision to our symptoms).

The pear and blue cheese salad also looks very yummy. I’ve already been put onto pears and blue cheese. The potential was apparent with a piece of fairly indifferent Stilton so I went looking for ways of improving on this. The absolutely awsome Cheese Please recommended Cote Hill and Picos Blue. I tried both. The Picos Blue is the kind of cheese that should be kept in a lead lined box and I knew it could stand up to my fairly fruity pears, but to have them both marching around in your mouth is almost too much. The Cote Hill is equally assertive and extraordinarily creamy; I’m going back for more of that but it’s still not quite the perfect pear accompaniment. Hugh FW favours Dorset Blue Vinnie, so I’ll give that a try before the last pear goes soft; I reckon a better bit of Stilton has to be worth a try too.

I stepped out to pick a pear to eat with the stilton and port (that’s what autumn is all about) and this chap was sitting on the step. I almost trod on him.

Now I have my Nikon D40, I can more readily record how my frogs are the most handsome in Lewes.

Two of them are bellowing to each other this evening.

For the record, I just saw a fish, so there’s at least one of them alive.