too much of a good thing!

i have a story to share .... about our worms and excess.  don't laugh ... the analogy holds true for life .... and practically speaking, i have learned from it!  <g>

have you heard the story of the very hungry caterpillar?  where he is hungry and goes on the hunt for food and eats his way through a week of really rich, yummy food that made him sick at the end?  when what he really wanted and needed was a good, healthy, yummy green leaf.  and he felt all better after that!  <g> and was able to do what caterpillar's need to do!  weave a cocoon and become a beautiful butterfly!

 so ... we got our worms, right?  and i thought ... way cool .... these little guys are gonna chomp through all these leftovers and make it into gorgeous castings for our garden and worm tea to fertilize with .... right?  WRONG!

i left them for a few days and when i went to have a sneaky little peak at my gorgeous critters .... what did i see?  MOULD!  EVERYWHERE!  egad!  what did i do wrong?  i tore open my little instruction book .... not much help there except to say that you shouldn't over feed them .... they DON'T need it.  gee .... should've read that sooner!  so i go straight to the computer and do a trusty search on worm mould and come up with the fact that simply speaking .... i have been over feeding my babies with all the wrong things!  oh good grief!  how silly am i?  feeding them all the rich stuff when what they need is a good diet of shredded newspaper and grass clippings!

and you know the remedy?  the icky and gross work of picking out all the mould bit by bit and piece by piece.  and the reminder that what they really need is more is the good stuff .... some grass clippings and lots of shredded newspaper.

so for the past two days i have spent a good 30 minutes each day picking through the worm farm trying to get out anything that looked remotely mouldy.  the worms aren't stupid .... they've gotten as far away from that wretched stuff as they can ....and i'll have to keep this up until i get rid of it all.  some might give in .... dump the worms and just start again.  i refuse to give in to that defeatist mentality!  we will conquer this and we will learn from this.

what an analogy for us with our lives, huh?  between what we think we need and what we actually need.  i would love a huge house .... with heaps of stuff to make my life EASY.  i want to hire a landscaper/permaculture guru to come in and do all our permaculture and backyard work for us.  it would be the EASY thing to do.  i would really like brand spankin' new things that are top of the line and make me feel like i'm top of the heap.  oohhhh ... and a new fangled TV!  wouldn't that be delightful!  but i'm so glad that my Father in Heaven knows that would be one of the dumbest things in the world to have happen to a selfish and self centered person like me -- to give me things i don't need or wouldn't truly appreciate.

i need to appreciate what i have .... NOW.  what i have today.  a dear husband and three amazing kids.  friends near and far that i would lay down my life for.  i have a roof over my head, which is more than many people can say in this world.  having just returned from the Philippines, I KNOW i have heaps more than most people ...i have seen people with so much less than i have and they are amazingly joyful and happy.  we don't need to fill the bellies of our greed with stuff .... we need to be grateful for what we have and to live in the moments that we have rather than loosing ourselves in what "might be."  may i be ever mindful of this. and i have no doubt that i will need to be reminded of this constantly!

next time i covet what someone else has may i think of the worms we have and the mould that greed and excess can cause in our lives.

as for our worms .... the table scraps will be going back to the  chooks ... who will make good use of them.  i am thinking for the worms that the yellowpages directories that still get delivered (WHY????) will make good food for the worms for a while.  shred it up nice and small and give it them a little bit at a time .... so they enjoy it and indulge themselves on the good stuff.  hey ... those stupid books are made out of trees ... what better way to use them than to return them to the good earth!