Farewell to the worm bin. We will try again in the spring, but the miscellaneous bugs were getting out of control. We got infested with these super tiny little flies. I mean REALLY infested. I think there was more of them than there was dirt, and definitely more than there were worms. I'm not sure what exactly did it or where they came from. Initially we developed some fruit flies and these little black (smaller than knats) flies, but these were something completely different. They were even tinier than the knat-like flies. I've never seen anything like it. The only thing I can come up with was the addition of the rabbit poo. I saw on another YouTube post that worms love rabbit poo. And we found this to be true. Maybe the two are somehow connected? Any other vermiculturists out there? We tried all of the methods we could find to rid the bin of these unwelcome guests: burying the food scraps, laying newspaper over the top of the soil, and placing a jar to catch fruit flies. They really didn't work all that well. Guess I'll have to do some more research and try again in the spring. All I can think is that I missed something, somewhere.
It's been cold here! In the negatives. I don't remember winters this cold since I was knee high to a grasshopper. Today, however, we got a little bit of a reprieve. It was almost 30 degrees Fahrenheit. The chickens were happy to get out. It was so cute to see all their little feet prints in the snow around the farm. Heck, the ice even melted at the bottom of our stairs. I realize that we've still got some winter left, but I sure can't wait for spring flowers. I can almost smell them!
Baby buns are doing well. Feisty things! And curious to boot! Hercules (who I am pretty sure is a female) almost jumped out of the hutch tonight. Quite a feat. I believe their angora is coming in, and I will need to start combing them very soon. Oh I can't wait to spin their fiber! Mr. Buns (or maybe I should say Papa Buns) is in need of a pluckin' but I am hoping to get him to March before I harvest. It's just too cold to be so 'naked'.
Hope y'all are fairing the winter weather and staying warm!
Here's our worm bin. We built it about a month ago, and have had worms eating our garbage for the past three weeks. I have to say, I'm quite impressed at the voracious appetites these little creatures have! Do you see all the little flecks of brown below? That is worm poop! We started the bin with moistened shredded newspaper and cardboard, a few leaves, a bit of dirt, and some food scraps. More food scraps were added as we accumulated them. And I have to admit, we had no real clue what we were doing. But it looked easy enough to start, and it was.
Our journey in composting started about three years ago. We lived in a barn (yes literally) turned apartments and had a small area outside along the barn to plant and compost. We were becoming more aware of all the garbage that we produced and wanted to start to do our part in decreasing our footprint on the earth. Actually it was recycling that we started first. Though recycling seemed to become big in the 90s (at least that's when I remember it becoming big), I've been astonished by the number of communities that DON'T offer a recycling program. At least no longer offer one that allows you to put bins out with your trash to be collected. In my opinion, sadly, it's made a lot of us lazy. And I had fallen into that category as well. So we made our own bins. Nothing fancy; we just cut some holes in large Rubbermaid containers and stacked them, designating each for what we recycled (plastic, glass, tin/aluminum, and paper). We made the effort (not much effort at all) to find a local drop off for recyclables, and once they were full, we took them to the recycling center. We were amazed how even just that little bit decreased the amount of garbage that we generated. So we took it a step further and started a compost pile in a 3X3 square outside our kitchen. We had now decreased our trash production from a couple bags of garbage per week to maybe one every three weeks! I couldn't believe how much of a difference composting and recycling made! I was so proud of my compost pile that when we moved, I packed it up in a bin and took it with me. 
