Worms

I think I am over this parenting thing.  Having more than 1,000 additional mouths to feed is pressure.
As if just feeding the worms wasn’t enough, naming them was a chore in itself.  At first it was easy.  Mark, Jill, Bob, but by number 957 it was harder.  Petunia is not a name that immediately springs to mind.  Petunia would probably tell you herself if she could talk.
A lot of research goes into keeping them alive.  What to do?  We were told it is ok if we need to start again.  Ok for us, but it means over 1,000 lives were lost.  They were the ones that paid the price.  Besides, I do not want to think of young Petunia gasping for her last breath, and wondering why.
Probably because they are worms that would not make the news.  If they were people there would be “Breaking News” across the bottom of every screen.  “Over 1,000 lost in single event.”  The Breaking News thing would get in the way of sub-titles.  If it was a slow news week, the story would go on and on.
We are now responsible for birds, bees and worms.  Someone did a study on bees.  They are depressed.  Don’t know about the worms.  I would like to think they are happy go lucky Australian worms.
To some they may be “just worms,” but each is a life.  Individually they all have worm aspirations.  They all want to fulfil their role.  It may be just to eat, reproduce and make castings, but they fulfil a vital role.
That represents a bit of a dilemma.  For Mothers day Merril will get a present from each.  It is hard to stay excited when present 349 is a casting like the previous 348 were, and the remainder will be. “A casting! What a surprise! Thank-you Melaleuca.” It is the thought that counts though.   No worm is favourite, and all are favourite.   Producing castings is what worms do very well.  I have never seen a worm construct one of our houses, or give a car as a gift.  In fact, I have never seen a worm even give a card.  Eat it yes, give it no.  I can’t put myself in their shoes as they don’t wear any.
We know we have to treat the worms right.  I would hate them to go bad.  The last thing we want is to be prisoners in our own home to a bunch of marauding worms.  “What was that noise?” “It’s the worms.  Got your pepper spray?”
I really want success.  To say I have had limited success with worms before would be a lie.  I have had no success.    A mate and I tried it once.   We went to a worm farm and got a heap of worms (Is that a gaggle?)  To my mind where we put them was a nice place.  Really, what more could a worm want?  More food apparently.  There came a day when there were no worms in sight.  Actually, mostly they were not in sight.  Digging revealed there were no worms.  They had escaped!  The course revealed why that probably happened.  Worms will travel up to a couple of kilometres for a food source.   We didn’t see it happen though.  It all happened underground.  I reckon the travel would take ages.
No wonder I am feeling the pressure.  I don’t want to see our worms go elsewhere or make like lemmings.  Still, I guess that would be their way of telling us they were not happy.