Worm City.....Compton, CA USA?

When I started keeping earthworms in my garage a few years back, my step-dad told me the biggest grower of worms was right down the street in Compton. I found this hard to believe as the methods of raising various earth worms, red wigglers specifically required a good amount of farm land and dirt and I know that Los Angeles has a strong agriculture heritage but I couldn't believe that a chunk of land in the middle of Los Angeles would make economic sense to raise earthworms. And as it turns out I was right...about it being earthworms.

Now mealworms, which aren't even worms, but rather the pupae stage of the Darkling Beetle is a different story completely. These little critters can be raised in the dark, stacked from floor to ceiling in rolling bins, which is exactly what 2 city blocks of not-so-prime land,(actually its a pretty rough part of town) is being used to do in Compton around 20 minutes from our house at Rainbow Mealworms.

This sounded like a dual-purpose field trip for Skye and me to take. We would be getting some worms, a great source of protien that our chickens would love and crazy over for a great price, Skye would get to see what a meal worm farm looks like, not what you think of when you think farm that's for sure and we these little critters would make for a lively addition to the upcoming Ecology 101-It's a Bug's World. Hey that's three things making it a multi-purpose trip.



In the heart of the 'hood' is a thriving mega-insectopolis.



It was a bit of a dingy place, but can't beat the prices.



This is one of dozens of buildings and that house the worms and worm-processing equipment, and shipping stuff and pretty much all you'd need to make raising beetles into a profitable venture.



One of the many hundreds of racks holding a few of the many more hundreds of bins used in meal worm production.




They were nice enough to show us the various varieties and also told us that the meal worm and the jumbo worm were the same species, but that the jumbo worm get treated with a hormone to make it around twice as big as its untreated brethren.

Hormone treated bugs
There seem to be hormones in everything these days. I recently found out that almost all tilapia, a cheap white fish being used in all sorts of food, are treated with hormones, the hormone drug 17alpha-methytestosterone to be exact, basically giving the young fish a sex change so they are all male and will grow bigger and fatter and at the same rate.

But I thought, wait don't we naturally have hormones in us? How bad would it be to add hormones? It depends on what hormones, do what levels, etc. etc. and the studies and results and evaluations from the results are flooding in amid a cacophony of controversy. I mean fattening up worms mostly to be fed to pet reptiles is one thing, bad enough, but chemical sex change to fish that then go directly to humans that seems a bit, (no don't use the pun) f---y?




They also come in two different colors.



It takes a lot to feed that many worms, or baby beetles more correctly.



The Beetles waiting to go on stage as it were.

It was an awesome class with much carnage, between the our cold blooded killer, Lief Erickson and the baby killing chickens, but the kids loved it and hopefully learned a thing or two. I learned more than I every thought I would about the Darkling Beetle and I've only just begun.

Race to Mushroom Mountain

A Mushroom walks into a bar and asks the bartender for a drink. The bartender says "No way! We don`t serve your kind here!" The mushroom says "Ahh come on, I`m a Fungi!"


The 26th Annual Wild Mushroom Fair

A couple of weeks back on one of the several home school yahoo groups I'm on there was a link to a Mushroom festival weekend hapening over at the Los Angeles Arboretum.

This was the flier that captured my attention and wooed me.

Now I have been interested in mushrooms for a while now. Skye and I had grown mushrooms a year or so ago as part of a "science" class and I had been planning to order some spores and do a similar project as one of the topics in my Ecology 101 class. I was also very interested in foraging for wild mushrooms and had been planning on trying to go on an outing with the mushroom club.

I thought the timing of this post I came upon was perfect. So I collected Skye from a sleepover she had been too and raced to catch the last bit of Mushroom Extravaganza. There were plenty of other things I could have been doing, that I should have been doing, but not to deny my distractable nature would be, well unnatural.

So from Marina Del Rey we raced to literally the other side of town, in fact beyond the other side of town to the Los Angeles Arboretum. And then the frustrating obstacles really started, there was no parking, road rage was raging among throngs of people who came out on this beautiful day to relax in the gardens. Finally due in large part to the Prius' compactness we managed to squeeze in a small spot, so that we could go wait in line for half an hour. Their system of one cashier taking only cash and checks, with a broken ATM in the lobby was not really working and the ragers that had successfully napped a piece of asphalt for their cars now had to wait and wait in the sun, no shade for the line which was ironic because being a botanical garden there were hundreds of trees and arbors and such, just not at the line to get into the joint.

We raced through the gardens to get to the Mushroom-fest before it closed, by this point starving and a bit grumpy.

This is the poster that greeted us upon entry and I do quite like it.

The "festival" itself left a little to be desired, pretty much on the same level as a high school science fair. There were some interesting information and some perfectly lovely displays, it just didn't meet up to the hype. The long drive, bad parking and ridiculous line certainly didn't help. Add to that we were on the tail end of the weekend and I think all the "good" demos and events had already happened.



The exhibit was set up on folding tables in a dreary hall.



Like I said, valid worthwhile information, a bit lacking in the presentation.



Unfortunate because there were some pretty amazing fungi collections











Look at the size of that one mushrooms.





There were lots of types of mushrooms to be sure.

But with all this fungi, everywhere there was none to eat. So Skye and I ended up in another line, paying for overpriced yucky park food. Skye got the hot dog, always a "safe" bet, I on the other hand ordered a Thai noodle salad trying to be healthy. I ended up more with a soup of dressing and some drippy, droopy noodles.

We went back to the exhibit to make sure that we hadn't missed anything.

Nope, but at least now we could wander and investigate without pangs of hunger distracting us form our mycological wandering.



This is the group that I want to get involved with, you know in my free time the "Los Angeles Mycological Society". I would like to forage the local terrains hunting for mushroom with some experts before relying on a guidebook and my own peepers.

Eggciting Artistry

I was in Barnes and Nobel the other day and they had this book in the clearance section for ten bucks. It seemed like it might have something interesting in it.




The day before I took this picture.




Which she adds to the growing collection


And then we start the yummy adventure,...






It's like art....

and then to make the breky brek breakfast.

Leif Erickson--One of our latest additions to the Danniells household

Praying Mantis are Cool

That said as part of the on-going Ecology 101 class in conjunction with the Milagro Hills Vertical Farm and the Milagro Co-operative Experiment, and pretty much because of my previous feeling, Mantis are Cool. I purchased another "special" mantis. This guy (or gal) isn't the typical Chinese mantis that you buy the egg sack and put it out in your garden and hope that they will hatch and then eat all of the villain bugs. (Yes even our insects were imported from China, back in 1895)

Our latest addition is a Ghost mantis (Phyllocrania paradoxa) and so far she is amazing and healthy, eating well and on cue.

In class yesterday, I dropped a small cricket on the limb she was hanging out on and withing seconds the mantis had lurched out and grabbed the cricket and spent the next several minutes enjoying its conquest and meal, all to the gasping amazement of several children ranging from 6-13 years old, not to mention some of the parents. There is a reason why the Circus Maximus was so popular amount the Romans.



This is a clear photo of a Ghost Mantis, although not ours. I was having a tough time getting a good photo, more and better ones will follow, I'm sure.




Again clear photo and again not our little fella

Leif Erickson

After watching the predatory stylings of one of the latest additions to the Danniells Zoological Foundation, we needed to come up with a name.

After throwing out some too obvious and sometimes just lame (sorry) names, that did include "Edward" of Twilight fame, you crazy Twihards, we settled on what I thought was a lovely name, Leif Erickson. An outlaw with a nice amount of Viking brutality was fitting for our alien=looking friend.



I would have preffered Christopher Johnson from District 9 fame, but I doubt any of the young 'uns would have seen the movie and gotten the reference, so Lief Erickson it was.





This is our little guy.




Literally "hanging" out in his/her new home.







Enjoying a cricket snack.



I love this cricket crunch. Exoskeletons come prepackaged.

Make sure to click on the images to make them larger and really get to appreciate the unique life forms that live all around us.

Warning Blog Jam Ahead

I looked up my last post, February 15. Its been less than a week and I am spinning with updates, backed up, imagined and contrived, occurrences and observations. So in no particular order I will spew forth a bunch of word concept fragments notes and confusionations.

Inglorious Bastards, Mantids, Entomology and beyond, from one task to ten, death row in the garden and I am not in jail, running not running, a kettle of fish or rather tanks for the memories. Incubation and what the post office may think.

I said it was a word spew.

World of worms, eggs, eggs and less eggs, candling and burning down the house, mushrooms from afar, tasting bees and role reversals, rock on, bullfrogs, where do I live, evolution, creationism and observations of public education.

Milagro Vertical Farms, Back Yard Buddies, the web site that will never be (Say it isn't so)

A bunch of cool tunes, Kobe where art thou, but wait the team is still winning, mostlyish.

Ecology 101--24/7

One picture as a tease, or a warning......falling asleep on the job!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two Eggcellent Chickens

We found out which chicken was the one who started giving us fresh eggs. It was our Barred Plymouth Rock hen, Oreo.

Then yesterday after we got back from our mycological misadventure, Skye found a light bluish egg under the rosemary bush near the chicken coup. That color would signify that Mary, our Ameraucana hen had started laying as well.



Skye finding more eggs. Both Mary and Oreo have started laying an egg a day. The first bird we bought, Blondie has yet to lay. Still though we're looking at a dozen eggs a week. This is sooo
cool.



Aren't they just picture perfect.?

Chocolate Treasures

The other night a good friend of mine came over just to hang out and chat. She brought with her little pieces of magic that her husband some how is able to create from their home.



Home-made artisan chocolate.



I took the shot glasses out of the infamous "Wheel of Shots" and cut out little black discs for the little coca pearls to set on to enjoy the ride.

Our First Eggs!!!!

We've had our chickens for a while now. And they have been a bunch of fun and getting bigger and stronger and wackier as time goes by. However, while they have shown me how much chickens can eat and what a varied diet they have,( devouring left overs, table scraps and pretty much anything we toss out to them, true-green garbage disposals,) they have not done any producing, save the goodly amount of "fertilizer" they s--t out.

I know that they produce less in winter months, sometimes stopping completely, so I was ready to wait until spring, before deeming them non-egg makers, which will pretty much make them a fryer, although I don't know if that is an option due to Skye.

But then out of the blue, and maybe because it was the first long sunny day after a bunch of rain, I found an egg in each nesting box.



I think they are from the same bird, but can't be sure.
Both were cracked because I had taken the straw out and added it to the rest of the straw in the coup to keep them a bit warmer because of the recent extra chilly evenings.




Now for sure none of these birds will be for meat. Saved by the bell or the egg rather.





The yolks are an amazing deep yellow practically orange and oh so delicious.




They did manage to find a way out and then ravaged a few planters that I had recently added a couple of little plants to. Oh well. A small sacrifice I suppose.

So this weekend will be full of chicken coup cleaning, adjustments, roof and ramp building and escape-proofing. Also will be making more panels to protect the vegetable beds and making some electric heated germination beds.

It'll be an agri-structure President's weekend for sure.

The Cindy Weekend

Crazy, Crazy, Crazy

Cindy was coming home for the weekend for her birthday. Flying in on Friday and out before noon on Sunday. She's hard enough to shop for on a regular tic, forget about a fly-through b-day, when things are coming off the rails.

I felt like I might be coming down with something, but with my lack of sleep and just juggling way too much, I thought it might just be me getting run down.

I thought about not going to jui jitsu and then decided to power through, but then a oop a doop twist had me practically cracking a rib. I've busted my ribs before and it sucks. This wasn't on that level, it was a muscle thing I think. It hurt bad but not like, I've had before.

That "coming down with it feeling" fully manifested itself by the time we were picking Cindy up making driving, coughing, breathing and laughing painful. My head felt stuffed with cotton. Skye was under the weather too. So when Cindy got in, it was a pretty motely crew she was meeting.

Skye and I thought that a nice clean and organized house would be what Cindy really wanted. And I'm sure it would have been nice.

But not only was the sickness and injury but the rain came in and our house is less than weather-proof, we had leaks and nonsence happening and me in sick criple mode trying to contend with these things.

We did, in the end have a wonderful and beautiful weekend together, just happy to be enjoying one another's company.

I had got Cindy a nice shirt at the eco fair, but the cleaning lady had "put it away" and I only just found it as Cindy was loading her stuff in the car on Sunday getting ready to head back to Atlanta.

Luckily on Sunday the clouds parted and made for one of those amazingly clear LA days.

But sadly also had to say goodbye to our dear wife/mama Cindy.

High Pointers and beyond

Skye and I have been scrambling for the last bunch of time to get together her visual aids speech about our road trip and our becoming members of the HighPointers of America, bagging 8 "high points" along the way.

Even though, she'd only been practicing for a few hours and add to that it was in bits in pieces as I finished her props, she did a great job.




After helping her set up, I scrambled back to my place in the back of the room, trying to get the video camera set-up without interrupting or distracting her. But she was already well into the speech before I even got to me seat. Then I turned off the flash, again so as to not distract her and end up with a less than wonderful photo.

I gotta be honest and try to stay as impartial as a proud papa can , but I am pretty impressed at how well she can deliver a 7 minute speech with no notes.

She did a great job, so proud of her.

Oh and the high points; Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas.

Skye's Visual Aides Speech- An Art Project

In an attempt to avoid a Blogjam,(a pile up of blogworthy events and notes yet to be written and posted), the next several blogs may not appear in the order that they occurred, please bear with me. Believe me, it'll be confusing for me as well as I use my blog as a way to keep track of what is happening and what has happened. With my memory being what it is, I am often wondering, "Where in the World is Jon".

Skye's Speech

As part of Skye's home school experience, she is part of a Home School Public Speaking Club that meets once a week. It is mostly child-led, but has a wonderful framework patterned after Toastmaster's International and the dedicated guiding hand of a home school mom who organized and founded of the group, and continues to do an amazing job keeping it going. It has trully enriched Skye's learning experienced and inspired me to start an ecology class(more on that latter, blogjam alert).

The members of the group are assigned various roles in order to run the meetings, do importu speeches, evaluate one another, and give speeches of varying lengths and subjects. This week Skye was to present her "Using Visual Aids Speech" about her being a member of the HighPointer Club of America and the HighPoints we conquered on our road trip several months back.

I just figured out how to connect my computer to the projector in our TV room and thought it would be cool to make foam-core cut-outs of each of the states where we bagged a summit and mount the photos of the journey on said cut-outs.



I would find a picture of the state on the internet and then size it up to the piece of foam core I had.





Then I would trace the outline on the foam core and then take it down and cut it out.




The first couple were fun and then it became a race against time because as usual we waited until the last minute to motivate get things going.

We had several boards that had been used and re-used and were ready to be retired, so I figured we could re purpose these one final time.



We mounted a map of the US to show our journey and where the high points were. Above the map is the official HighPointer poster which gives all of the 50 state's summits, their names and elevations.



A work in progress.

While I worked on the pieces, Skye worked on the speech, did chores, like laundry and even cooked up a spaghetti dinner for us. It was a good team effort.



More pieces to the puzzle as it were.



Project from another angle. Trash can in background is part of the Ecology 101 class, blogjam ahead.

As I write this at 6 am, with the speech to happen at 10 am, I still have to run out to Staples for a proper eisel, I now know of the closest one that opens at 7 am, blogjam alert.

Finish a couple of the states, for some reason the brown paint didn't dry as fast as the others.

Practice and hone down the speech to the appropriate time.

Better get moving......

Ecology 101--Professor Danniells reporting for Duty

I decided to teach an ecology class to Skye and a bunch of other home school kids. I happened on this idea after spending many hours with Skye in the backyard, gardening and "urban-farming" giving her a hands-on education in topics and studies ranging from biology to botany, geology and economics, not to mention construction and landscaping.

So I wanted to share the experience, plus Skye would benefit from the interaction of ideas and such with her peers. If I played my cards right, I might even get the kids to pitch in with some of the "farm" work, Tom Sawyer style.

My first class, an intro to Ecology, was very reminiscent of my first go at clowning for kid's party, which loosely translates as good intentions but a substantial amount of dead air, you know crickets....chirp, chirp, chirp.....

On my second go at it, things were more focused and something I new a goodly amount about; dirt or rather soil. I called it, Soil--Natures Lasagna. I talked a bit, we watched a video and then got our hands dirty, sifting through a cubic foot of soil looking for the various denizens of dirt and compost critters, as well testing PH balances, nitrogen and what not.

Now that I've hit my stride so to speak we're looking to study earthworms, fungi, compost and much, much more. That said, I do wonder who's learning more me or the "students". Not so important really, we're all having a lot of fun.