Worm Mucking

So I head out to the store today, and then figure it's really getting pretty late, probably too late to get a decent dinner going, so I decide to grab a pizza from the shop next to the store. I call and place and order, unload the groceries, head over and get the pizza. On my way back, I see all these twigs all over the sidewalk. Must be all this rain. Hmm. There aren't any trees here big enough to generate all these twigs. What the heck? 

They were worms.

Dozens and dozens of worms. They all came from the raised planters that the store had out there. Made sense, the poor things were drowning, and trying to escape. Unfortunately, they were on the sidewalk now, which probably wouldn't help their case. I picked up one and tossed him back on the dirt, but walked around the rest to go back to the car. I decided there were just too many of them to worry about. (Like too many starfish on the beach?) Well, besides, even if I DID toss them back, they wouldn't fare well. The poor things were squirming out of the drain holes in the planters. Where could they GO?

What about my garden?

Now THERE'S an idea. 

So I fished an old cup from the car, left the pizza in the font seat and went back to the sidewalk, prodding at worms. If they moved (and some played dead), I put them in the cup. If they were still, I left them for the birds (who were chirping and rustling up in the grocery store sign's lettering). I learned lots about worms today:

• Sometimes they play dead.
  
• Worms can climb up brick walls.
  
• Worms are strong little suckers. Just TRY pulling them out of hiding.
  
• The easiest way to pick up a worm is to slide him across wet, smooth concrete and into a cup.
  

I had half a cup full by the time I left...probably around 70+ worms. I put a lid on the cup and drove them home. I checked my garden, but alas...it was SWIMMING! I couldn't put them there, they would die! So I tried the front garden, right around the dense boxwoods, and lo and behold, by taking a Garden Weasel to it, I easily pulled up some nice dirt. I checked our sidewalks and driveway and didn't see any stranded worms, so I figured it would be OK. Lauren wanted to help me toss worms into the garden (of course, she's my bug catcher!) so she came out in the rain with me. 

I was digging just a little more to make sure the worms would burrow in nicely, when Lauren shrieks, "LOOK MOMMY LOOK!" I turned, and there she was with a little snail held in her pincher-grasp. 

"The snails are out!" I said happily. "Hi, guys!"

I looked down at the Hosta bed and found it just littered with snails.

"Look at them all!" I said, pointing them out to Lauren. "Good grief!"

"I GO TELL BEBO!" she shouted, and streaked around the front of the house.

I tossed a few worms into the garden. Lauren came back, and I then started holding the remaining worms in my hand by the handful. Those worms who started to dangle from between my fingers first got picked and tossed into the newly roughed-up soil and mulch. 

I heard a bit of a squawk and a flutter, and looked up to see a mockingbird on the edge of the roof. His beady little eyes were watching the worm proceedings with much interest, and he hopped sideways one way and then the other. 

flutter, flutter.

David came around the corner and scared the bird away. I still pointed it out to the kids and asked why they thought the bird was so interested in the worms.

"He going to EAT THEM," said Lauren quite seriously.

"Not while WE'RE here, but yes, I think he has his eye on them."

Lauren made a sad face.

flutter, flutter.

Apparently it was too much. I whispered, "He's just landed on the sidewalk behind you."

Lauren turned and the mockingbird ran into the evergreen shrubs under the garage windows. 

Lauren looked at me with HUGE eyes. I shrugged back at her. David finally decided he was too cold and went back inside. Lauren helped until all the worms were in the garden, and I started to cover them with more dirt. She went back inside. 

I hoped the worms had enough time to get pretty deep underground, because now I was leaving them. 

I went around to the back garden. One of my stepping stones was literally underwater. I tried the Garden Weasel on the dirt. I didn't plant anything last year, and the garden had half-heartedly grown over with grass. The Weasel uprooted the grass in nothing flat. I saw my opportunity and took it. 

I fetched the Garden Claw, and proceeded to spade the entire garden. Great hunks of grass and mud came up, and it made sucking squelching noises on every third turn. Every time I stabbed at the garden with the Claw, a little shower of mud droplets hit my sweatpants. 

Lauren came out the back door, dressed this time in a coat and scarf. She kept trying to dip her foot into the mucky water until I threatened to send her inside if she did it again. She was fascinated. "Cool sound," she said.

"Yup. It's wet."

"I put the stones back for you..."

"No, it's too muddy for the stepping stones to go back. Right now I just want to get all this grass flipped over so it'll rot."

"Yucky! Why?"

"Because it's green fertilizer, it'll make plants grow better," I said. 

"Gween?"

"Yeah, the grass it green, they call it green fertilizer. It'll break down in about six weeks and be plant food."

"Oh! (pause) I'm toasty warm, Mom, I have a COAT!"

"I'm glad you're toasty warm. Believe it or not, I'M toasty-warm, too, withOUT a coat."

"I thought you would be cold."

"No, I'm warm. I'm warm because I'm working."

"Working in the the mud."

"Yes, definitely working in the mud."

"Your hands are black."

"That," I said, unsuccessfully trying to wipe away a mud spatter on my glasses, "would be the mud."

"You hafta have a bath," she said, and spun on her heel and headed for the door.