Vermicomposting with Rabbit Poop

This weekend we were planning on getting a rabbit from one of my wife's coworkers, but that fell through temporarily and I decided to get a rabbit on my own. A trip to our local "Swap meat" aka "Flea Market" was the perfect opportunity to see what type of "livestock" would be available. Since I live in Southern California, between Bakersfield and Visalia, I am in the farming hub, if you will of California. That means that every kind of animal you can imagine that belongs on a farm is available in abundance for next to nothing.

I was able to get a rabbit with cage and two bowls, for food and water for 26 dollars. A quick stop at the local feed store and I walked out with a dog food sized bag of fresh alfalfa for free after relating to the shop keeper whose wife suffers from the same disease I do. He generously allowed me to pick up the alfalfa that had fallen off the complete bales and told me I could keep what I could stuff in the bag he provided. I was very grateful and stuffed the bag to full capacity.

I also grabbed a pound of alfalfa pellets and a pound of alfalfa seed for my garden.

Meet Peter, Peter Rabbit...that is.

In the last few days, Peter has done an excellent job turning grass and alfalfa pellets into some very nice droppings/manure that my redworms seem to absolutely love. I have been storing his poop in a coffee can until needed and then I add it to the frozen vegetables I keep adding to the Worm Inn. The worms are thriving!

Reaping the Rewards of Gardening

One of the ways I am dealing with my illness both physically and mentally is by keeping things around me alive, which has provided me with a purpose. I got the idea when I had lost all hope and was visiting my ailing friend Bill, who happens to be suffering with a Cancer Doctors have deemed Terminal. I watched Bill as he moved about his garden, and was amazed to see the various varieties of plants he had already established in his new garden.

His plants were so alive and Bill was happy to give me the various vegetables that no one in his household seemed to want. He was even happier when we turned the Roma Tomatoes he grew into a sauce that we used for various dishes. The joy we all received from the minimal effort it took to grow this food struck me to my core and made me want to pursue gardening full time.

While I will admit I wasn't able to grow the super garden I had hoped for this year (due to my inability to get a good tiller last spring and settling for a hand tiller instead), I am still reaping the rewards of my effort on a daily basis. That is no exaggeration either. I have more vegetables at times than we can eat and when I've given as many away as I can, they come back to me later as rotten vegetables, ready for the vermicompost system.

 Here are the vegetables we picked Saturday morning

The potatoes were given to me by a friend who had a bag rotting on his porch. He was going to throw them onto a field and just let them decompose into organic matter. I had other ideas and decided to cut off the moldy parts and plant what I could to see if anything would grow!

When I started seeing shoots of potato vines coming up out of the ground all over, I knew we'd been successful. My wife harvested a couple of the potatoes so we could have a breakfast burrito, yum! As you can see in the picture, we also harvested Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, jalapenos, green beans, broccoli, and a hybrid zucchini/squash. The potatoes take the longest to grow, everything else we harvest every few days, including okra which is almost daily, but not pictured.

We very much enjoy eating fresh vegetables without pesticides or other contaminates on them~

Mr. Monopoly, It's what's for dinner!

As I was adding onions to lunch the other morning (my pregnant wife craves hamburgers during her pregnancies lol), I noticed a familiar face in my food!

It kinda looks like my grandpa a bit too. Believe it or not, this was not a face made intentionally. I was in a hurry to get this food done and was just randomly chopping onions and tossing them in the pan, throwing a few on the burgers as I went along. To my surprise and delight, a face caught my eye and I snapped the photo above.

Swordfighting Watermelon Vines

The other day as I was watering my garden, my youngest son came upon a sight that only a keen eye with a child's imagination would notice. He pointed out a watermelon vine that had grappled onto two sticks and were frozen in a sword fight. See if you can spot the fighting vines!

And for those of you who still can't see it, I added arrows in the next picture to make it easier!

Just thought it was cute that he noticed it and it made me chuckle! :-D

Air Cleaning Bagless Vacuums

One of the lessons I've had to learn the hard way is that maintenance is a necessary part of life, no matter how tedious it may be. So a couple years ago I started looking into ways to clean my electronics with my air compressor (a worthwhile investment compared to cans of air, which are expensive and don't contain much air) without causing damage from the moisture of the tank/hose. I asked around and a friend recommended one of these.

A moisture filter

This device has a glass tube (see above) with some sort of sponge inside that captures the moisture, allowing the air that passes through to be dry(er). I started using it to clean computers and other electronics (will do a post on that later, so check back) and eventually discovered that it could be used to clean my vacuum cleaners internal filters, saving money, rather than throwing them away and buying new filters.

A filter

And here's a before and after picture of how well the air compressor/filter combo works.

 Before

After

And finally a picture of the air compressor with the moisture filter attached.

I have used these same vacuum cleaner filters for a little over a year and a half and they are still doing their job nicely. I notice that every time I clean out the vacuum it performs as if new and our carpets feel much better. Considering that this is a bagless vacuum, maintaining it properly should be important as dirt, dust, and dander can cause serious health problems, not to mention shorten the life of your vaccuum by causing unnecessary wear/stress on dirty parts. Plus, who can resist saving a little money in this tough economy?

10 Years of Bills = Worm Bedding

So what does it look like when a person saves most of their bills over a ten year period?

Like This

After a couple of hours of shredding on that paper shredder you see in the picture (which ironically says on the bottom to only use it for 3 mins at a time)

See

and finding out they weren't kidding about using it for only a few minutes, due to overheating of the little motor inside, my family working as a team, was able to turn what normally would have been landfill paper into bedding for my worms!

 They Love It!

Just goes to show that a little bit of effort goes a long ways!

****It's important to remember to use only cardboard, non-glossy paper, newspaper, etc. Anything with gloss, shininess, or glue should be avoided. When tearing up cereal boxes, I usually rip the glue parts off and then let my kids process the rest into tiny squares that can be easily applied to the Worm Inn as needed.

Watermelon Vs. Fence

So I decided to see how big my watermelons would get if I let a couple of them grow inside my fence. The real goal is to see if they burst open or somehow stay small in the center and grow around the fence without breaking, like a tree that eats a sign from being in place too long, growing over it.

And another

Regardless of the outcome, these melons are being grown to feed the red wigglers, so if I do happen to find them laying on the ground after being cut by the fence, they will be added to the freezer and then in a week or so, to the Worm Inn!

I'll keep you updated!