A New Addition

An exciting new addition to the family was welcomed to The Dread House today. Our little bundle of joy was introduced to the household this evening -- red, wiggling, slimy, and ravenous.

Introducing...

Bag O' Worms!

Yes, 1000 red wigglers arrived at the house today! We assembled their home -- the appropriately titled Can O' Worms -- prepared the bedding, and freed the worms from their transport bag and box.

Placing the bedding (coconut fiber) in the bin:

Bag O' Worms!

Pile O' Worms!

Exciting worm close-up!

Our worms are currently engaged in what is known as "worm run". Meaning, of course, they're all trying to escape frantically from the bin...to what destination, we don't know. It's supposed to take about a week for them to settle in; in the meantime, it's possible we'll have a few casualties as they escape from the bin and either dry up or get eaten by the cat, whose food bowl is near the worm bin. Tragic!

As the system reaches maturity, which will take up to 12 months, we can expect our worms to increase in number until they reach 10,000-15,000. Hopefully, they'll enjoy our food scraps!

Trachelas Tranquillus

Nothing that looks like this --



-- should ever be in my kitchen sink*.

I managed to overcome my terror to catch her in a (very large) glass and put her outside. Normally I can't do this with hunting spiders, but she was rather sluggish from having gotten her feet wet in the sink and was unable to climb the sides of the sink herself.