Raising composting Earthworms 101

Red Wiggler composting earthworms are the same all over the world. These small red worms are also commonly called manure worms because they invariably are found in aged manure piles. While night crawlers borrow into the ground, and can easily escape, Red Wiggler composting earthworms are surface dwellers and are less apt to leave their bedding unless it becomes uninhabitable (to wet or to dry). I cover this subject at some length in my best seller The Earthworm Farmer's Bible; however, the important thing for beginners to understand is that composting earthworms are easy to raise and can be placed in almost any container including plastic buckets, plastic totes, stack-able bins, old bathtubs and wooden boxes; in fact their bedding can even be placed directly on the ground or over a slab of concrete or asphalt! The worms I sell commercially are raised in 100 foot long windrows placed directly on the ground. The windrows are covered with a tarp to conserve water and to keep the birds and turkeys out, that's it! You can easily establish a similar, but smaller, windrow in a shady area of your backyard at little or no expense. That's the beauty of raising composting earthworms in your backyard, you can turn your kitchen and paper waste into valuable earthworm casting with little effort and at minimal expense! Composting earthworms will eat almost anything that was once alive, kitchen waste, lawn clippings and tree leaves. You name it and the worms will eat it. Exceptions to this general rule include scented woods and their leaves (redwood, cedar and eucalyptus) and extremely fatty foods like butter and animal fat. In this respect, small amounts of fat are not important and do not have to be separated from your kitchen scraps. You can do this! Have questions? Email me at docmerrill@aol.com. Remember, 50 percent of our garbage, over 500 billion metric tons a year, can be eaten by composting earthworms. Do your part, start composting with earthworms today!

The Last Days OF Saint Nicholas

"I'm definitely getting to old for this," Nicholas said to his best friend and lead reindeer Rudolf. "How long have we been playing Santa Claus do you think?" "I don't know that I can rightly recall," replied Rudolf, "but it must be close to 300 years, give or take a decade or two." Nicholas' sainted father, the first Santa Claus, had learned to communicate with reindeer years before Nicholas was born. His father had taught Nicholas the reindeer language shortly before he was killed by an errant meteorite that hit his sleigh while he and his reindeer were making their rounds on that fateful Christmas eve night in the year 1842. Nicholas had inherited his father's job and, with the help of his faithful reindeer, had been navigating through the cold Christmas Eve nights ever since. With the exception of a few times when the weather was so bad that mail could not be delivered to the north pole, Nicholas and his reindeer had never failed to deliver the books, toys and dolls that the good little boys and girls of the world had asked for. Nicholas also made sure that never ran out of lumps of coal for the children who had not been so good. But Nicholas was getting old and Rudolph was also beginning to feel the ravishes of age."You know Rudolph," Nicholas said, " My eye sight isn't what it used to be and I'm having a fair amount of difficulty navigating by the stars anymore." "I'm a little afraid that we might not be able to find our way home this year." "I'm not feeling so great myself," replied Rudolph, "My poor old nose isn't near a bright as it used to be and the arthritis in my right rear hoof won't let me fly nearly as fast as I could when you first recruited me to lead your sleigh." "In truth, I just don't know how much longer I can go on." "I know Vixen and Prancer aren't in all that great shape either." " Vixen was saying just the other day, when the elves were packing the toys in the back of the sleigh, that his arthritis was so bad that he could barely walk." "Our Prancer can't exercise anymore and has gained so much weight during the off season that it will be difficult for him to get in his harness, let alone fly any great distance." "Obviously, it's time to call it quits," Nicholas said, "in fact, it's long past time that we retired." "Rudolph looked sadly into his old friends eyes, placed both a front hoofs on his shoulder and began to cry as he shook his stately antlered head in agreement." It was only a month before Christmas and that left Nicholas very little time. He had to make certain that those presents were delivered on Christmas Eve night, just as they had been for almost three centuries. Nicholas called his friend billionaire Bill Gates and asked for help. "Bill," he said, "we're in big trouble up here at the North Pole." "My reindeer and I are too old and infirm to make the Christmas run this year." "An awful lot of children are going to be very disappointed if we don't deliver their Christmas presents on time. "I've made a tentative deal with UPS." "They have agreed to deliver the presents on Christmas Eve night as has always been the case." "Our friend Scott Davis of UPS has even agreed to dress their drivers up in Santa Clause suits if we are willing to pay a little extra for the deliveries." "Unfortunately, Mrs. Nicholas and I do not have the resources to finance an operation of this size, could you help?" "Of course, I can," Mr. Gates Replied without hesitation. "Look Nicholas, I'm a little tied up right at the moment." "Just have Scott send me the bill, If he wants to he can call me." So it came to be. The Christmas presents were delivered on time and no one was the wiser. Knowing the end was near, Nicholas sold his toy factory at the North Pole, as well as his other possessions including the sleigh, and moved with Mrs. Claus to a secret island in the Caribbean. He and his beloved reindeer spent their last days swimming in the warm ocean water and building sand castles with their new monkey friends on the beautiful black sand beaches of the island's idyllic shore.

Why White Racism, one Hundred and Fifty-one Years After Emancipation?

One of the great mysteries of our time is why a significant number of white Americans, loathe blacks in the year 2014, a century and a half after we fought the great civil war to free them from slavery. Americans lost 620,000 men and boys in this conflict, almost as many died fighting to end slavery as were lost in all of our other wars combined (about 650,000). At this point in time, one could argue that the civil war was a gigantic waste of time, money and, most importantly, American lives. Interestingly, and a key to understanding racial strife in America today, 405,399 Americans lost their lives in the second world war in our fight against the Germans, Italians and Japanese, yet there is no significant hatred of, or bias against, these ethic groups in the United States today. In fact, at present, members of these minority groups are treated as equals, valuable members of society and, most importantly, with respect. Why this discrepancy, do you think? Is it simply the color of the black man's skin that makes us resent him or are there other factors involved. I would argue that the color of one's skin, whether black yellow, brown, red, or even green, is immaterial. No, as my mother used to say, "A person's color is only skin deep, and not of importance." Rather, as we will see shortly, it is the genetic makeup of blacks and, more importantly, their culture that is the primary cause of their plight in America and, I might add, the rest of the civilized world. First, let me reiterate the obvious. Every single city in America governed, in the past or present, by black politicians is an unmitigated disaster, every one, there are no exceptions! Cities like Flint Michigan, Detroit Michigan and Oakland California, once shinning lights of American greatness, are now hell-holes unfit for human existence. Oh, there are still pockets of civil society in places like Oakland and Detroit, but for the most part, incompetent corrupt liberal black leaders have destroyed these once great cities brick by brick and street by street, leaving nothing but ruin, poverty and hopelessness in their wake. Similarly, every single nation on planet earth governed by blacks is a crime ridden impoverished country unfit for human life, as we know it. And, guess what, slavery still exists in many parts of the modern world over 150 years after we abolished it in America and the vast majority of the slave owners today are black, many of whom cannot read or write and could not identify America on a world map if their lives depended on it! Are you beginning to understand that there is a common thread to this narrative? Blacks, wherever they are, with a few notable exceptions that make the rule (Walter E. Williams, Tomas Sowell, Dr. Ben Carson etc.) are incapable of civilized behavior (think Ferguson). Why is this? In truth, I do not know. But, having lived on this planet for the past 79 years, I do know that blacks are different, very different from their white counterparts. To understand these differences, and to grasp the fundamentals of white racism, one must consider the importance of black IQ and black social structure, or the lack of same. With respect to IQ, the behaviorists, based on their studies in pigeons and other birds and reptiles, would have us believe that all humans are born with roughly the same intelligence. This myth has been perpetuated by liberals for the past 60 years and has contributed significantly to the demise of the social structure in the country of our birth. To the contrary, the lifelong work of Herrington and Murray, summarized in their marvelous book, The Bell Curve, shows that 40 to 60 percent of a person's intellect is inherited from their parents. All of the head start programs in the world will not change this basic fact! More importantly, a review of 156 pertinent studies of intellect reveals that the disparity in IQ between blacks and whites is 1.08 standard deviations or 16 IQ points; this disparity in intelligence between blacks and whites is huge! I discuss the importance of IQ at some length in my book America In Decline. But, for now, just realize that in the technological age in which we now live, education is everything and if you do not have the mental capacity to be educated you are likely to fail in your pursuit of the American dream. In this respect, it is commonly said in the black community that "Education is a white man's thing." I believe this is another way of saying that " We, as blacks, cannot compete intellectually in the white man's world." This problem will only get worse for blacks as the numbers of immigrants from Asia and other countries in the far east, who, on average, have IQs three points higher than white Americans, increases. When considering the possibility of genetic differences between the races, I have always been confounded by the reluctance of most whites, and blacks for that matter, to admit the obvious. No one can dispute the fact that blacks are better athletes than their white counterparts. In this respect, there will never be a white Michael Jordan, not in a thousand years there won't! Most whites understand and accept this genetic based fact; however, many, if not most, refuse to consider the possibility that whites and Asians are superior intellectually to blacks. In this respect, there never will be a black Einstein, not in a million years there won't! Those who understand the significance of the tails of the bell curve for intelligence will readily grasp this important point, those who are uniformed, unfortunately, will not. Why belabor this point? Because white racism is, in part, based on the recognition, often subconsciously, that blacks are intellectually inferior to whites and all other races. Unfortunately, nothing can change this fact, but, if we have the "backbone" to accept the obvious intellectual disparity that exists between the races, we, at the least, can stop spending billions each and every year in our futile attempts to change the unchangeable. In his respect, do you really think the average black is better off today than he was 50 or 60 years ago? I think not! It is not only intellect, or a disparity in intelligence, that separates black and white cultures and fuels white racism. Most whites view people who wear saggy pants, which reveal their underwear, while wearing their baseball caps on backwards as somehow inferior and low-class. I know I do! Similarly, most whites were shocked at the ranting and raging of Michael Brown's step father, a two time convicted drug felon, as he attempted to induce a riot after the grand jury refused to indict officer Wilson for killing his step son in Ferguson. Although politically incorrect to object to such behavior, most whites do not condone it and, more importantly, resent it! Along the same lines, many, if not most, whites think there is something dreadfully wrong with a sub-culture in which over 70 percent of all births are illegitimate. Similarly, despite the liberals attempts to explain away black crime with a "They made me do it" mentality, many whites find it unacceptable that over 70 percent of young black men are either in prison or on parole. Not to surprisingly, many Caucasians are appalled at the stupidity of the average black Politian. You may recall the black moron, Congressman Hank Johnson, who warned that the island of Guam might "tip over" if too many military personal were allowed congregate on its edges. Be assured, that the dim-witted statements uttered on a daily basis by the Maxine Waters and Sheila Jackson Lees of this world, to name two of the most notorious ignoramuses in black leadership, do not go unnoticed by white America. Although political correctness forces most of us to suppress our true feelings on such matters, the resentment of blacks and their leadership is still there, have no doubt about it!. Finally, the fact that 32 percent of blacks are on welfare even though they make up only 12 percent of the population is annoying to middle class whites who often work two jobs just to make ends meet. These truths are especially infuriating to whites considering the fact we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the programs of Johnson's Great Society and billions more on the numerous affirmative action measures that followed, all of which were designed to achieve racial equality in our nation. No, the utter failure of all efforts to bring blacks into mainstream America has not gone unnoticed by white America. To the contrary, I believe most whites, begrudgingly, have come to the conclusion that, despite our best efforts, blacks will always be blacks and there is nothing much we can do to change the situation. Fortunately, most of us can still live in suburbs that are relatively free of blacks and their antisocial ways, and, in twenty-first century America, that's about all we can hope for. But, don't, for a minute, think that our racism is based on something as frivolous as skin color because in reality our resentment of blacks and their culture is nothing more, or less, than a rejection of their immorality, promiscuity, lawlessness and, yes, their inherent lack of intellect.

The Difference Between Nightcrawlers and Red Wiggler Composting Earthworms.

Basically, there are two types of earthworms, those that borrow deeply into the ground and those that live on the surface of the soil. Nightcrawlers live in tunnels deep in the earth, the openings of which are surrounded by their castings and appear as miniature volcanoes. There are many different types of nightcrawlers and they are named after the areas where they are found, E.G. the African Nightcrawler, the Canadian Nightcrawler, the European Nightcrawler and the Arkansas Nightcrawler. These earthworms are relatively large and are primarily used as fish bait. Most importantly, these large worms are relatively inefficient composters. Red Wiggler composting earthworms, on the other hand, are the same the world over. They also are called manure worms because they are invariably found in horse and cow manure piles throughout the earth. These small worms are ideal for composting organic waste and, under ideal conditions, will consume their weight on organic material every single day of their lives. They also are prized by worm farmers because they are very fertile, doubling their numbers in a worm bed every three months. Other than scented woods, like red or cedar, composting earthworms will eat anything that was once alive, including the scrapes from your kitchen table and your newspaper waste. Most importantly, the castings from these marvelous composters are the finest slow release organic fertilizer on the face of the world. Best of all, if you make them yourself, they are dirt cheap! By the way, we all know the garbage is an environmental problem, but did you know just how big a problem? In the USA we produce over 250 billion metric tons of garbage every single year. Fifty percent of this discarded waste is organic material that composting earthworms, if given half a chance, would gladly turn into valuable organic worm castings. What are you doing with your kitchen waste and newspapers?

he US -China carbon emission deal, Obama sells out America yet again!

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It is not my purpose to argue for or against legislation designed to curb climate change (global warming) here; rather, I want to point out the traitorous implications of Obama's latest foreign policy blunder in China. First, let me point out the obvious, China is by far and away the biggest atmospheric polluter in the world, no other country is even close! Thus, if we are to make any meaningful reduction in carbon emissions it must start in China, I think most eighth graders understand this, but apparently the members of the Obama administration do not. In short, the deal agreed to requires the US to reduce carbon emissions by 26 to 28 percent ( they clearly picked this figure out of thin air) of 2005 emission levels by 2025. Amazing as it must sound to the eighth graders in this country, Obama agreed that China could continue to expand their use of fossil fuels, and continue to increase their carbon admissions, for another 16 years! As long as they agree to "aim to" get 20 percent of their energy from zero-carbon emission sources by the "pie in the sky" year 2030. In other words, China agrees to continue to grow their economy for another 16 years while we continue to limit ours. Only someone who is "hell bent" on destroying American greatness who enter into such a one sided agreement! The eight graders, who probably understand that our economy is not in all that great shape, probably are wondering why Obama would agree to a deal that further cripples our economy, by imposing higher carbon emission standards on the industrial sector, while getting no concessions what so ever from the world's number one atmospheric polluter, other than the lame promise to do better at some far-off time in the future. The communists in China were willing sign this agreement because it gave them a little good press for a change and because they had absolutely nothing to lose by doing so, nothing at all! Obama did so because any agreement to limit carbon admissions, regardless of how ineffectual and pointless it is, will sell well with the American drive by media and his liberal know-nothing followers in places like Hollywood, San Francisco and New York, to name only three of the most egregious loony bins in the country. It also gave our American hating black president yet another chance to future hamper our recovery from the longest recession in history. Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers must be very proud of him as would have been the now deceased Saul Alinsky and his communist parents Ann Durham and Onyango Obama.

What did the 2014 midterm elections mean? Not what you may think!

Yes, the liberals took a shellacking in Tuesday's elections, of that there can be no doubt. But, I would argue, little or nothing has changed in American politics. Most importantly, the tens of millions of our citizens, and non citizens, who voted for Obama not once, but twice, are just as liberal today as they were six years ago when he was first elected. There has been no movement to the right, not even a smidgen! For example, many, if not most Americans, believed in socialized medicine before Obama was elected and, guess what, they still do! While it is true that these died in the wool liberals ding-bats were extremely upset at the bungled roll-out of Obamacare and a smaller percentage felt betrayed by the repeated lies Obama told prior to the passage of this destructive piece of legislation, the vast majority of the liberals in our population still believe in socialized medicine. In this respect, the recent election changed nothing, despite the drubbing liberal politicians took at the poles! It is not my purpose to argue the pros and cons of socialized medicine here; I just want to point out that liberals were not rejecting socialized medicine or any other liberal policy, when they throughout their liberal leaders this past Tuesday; rather, they were, for once, recognizing the utter incompetency of their elected liberal leaders and rebuffing them at the poles. Similarly, despite the chatter of liberal talking heads like Debbie "blabber mouth" Wasserman Schultz, most of the "uninformed" voters in this country know that that economy has not come roaring back from the present recession and they rightly blame their liberal leaders for the nation's prolonged economic stagnation. This, however, doesn't mean that they reject the liberal socialist policies (high taxation, high capital gains taxation, Obamacare, lack of school choice, illegal immigration, insecure borders etc.) which are responsible for the economic quagmire we find ourselves in. No, nothing has changed, the masses rejected their liberal leaders in the election but not their socialist policies. The average liberal is just as ignorant and socialistic today as he was prior to Obama's first election to office, maybe more so. So, what is to be learned from the 2014 midterm elections. First, and most importantly, we conservatives gained nothing! The voters were not rejecting liberal policies when they went to the poles, they simply were rejecting their liberal brain dead leaders. In this respect, conservatives gained little except temporary control of the house, which they already had, and the senate. As always is the case, come 2016 all will be forgotten and voters will return the liberals to power unless, of course, Ben Carson can be induced to run for president. If that happens we have a chance to make a meaningful short term improvement in our situation. But any hoped for changes gained by Carson's election would be short termed at best. In a pure democracy socialism always will prevail in the long run, always has and always will!

The Sergeant Tahmooressi Fiasco- Obama at his worst!

It all began when a homeless American war hero become entangled in the rat's maze that is the entry point to Mexico in Tijuana. The genius who designed this border crossing made it impossible to turn back unless you were in the far left lane. If stuck, by accident, in one of the right lanes you were going to Mexico, like it or not! Tahmooressi was snared in this trap and, before he could say Rumpelstiltskin, was in Mexico with three firearms in the bed of his truck, legal in America but very illegal in Mexico. At this point, if the Mexican authorities had had an ounce of common sense they would have sized up the situation for what it was, an innocent mistake by a somewhat mentally deranged America veteran, and put him back in his truck with a fast track ticket back to American soil. Unfortunately, common sense did not prevail and the unfortunate ex-marine spent the next 204 days in Mexican Jails. Having been to Mexico and having read hundreds of accounts of the mistreatment of American's who have become entangled in the Mexican court system, none of this surprised me. What stunned me was the response, or rather the utter lack of such, to the situation by our federal government. Tahmooressi immediately became a "cause célèbre" and the darling of the right wing media, especially Fox News. One would have thought that the Obama administration would have seized the opportunity to, for once, get a little good press and pressured the Mexican authorities to release Tahmooressi immediately on, if nothing else, humanitarian grounds. But, no Obama did nothing! Absolutely nothing! It seems clear that one simple telephone call to Mexico's president Nieto would have brought Tahmooressi home. But, for reasons that only he knows, feckless Obama refused to make the call. Rather than "speak softly and carry a big stick" this "ineffective clown of a president" did nothing. Apparently he has no voice and has never heard of the "power of the stick." Yes, I'll grant you that he's pretty good at fund raising, but that's about all! What, you may be asking, could Obama have done if Mexico's Nieto refused his request to release our marine? Well, three possibilities spring immediately to mind. First, because we know where they are, we could have round up the 52,000 illegal and disease infected children that have crossed our southern border in recent months and send them right back to Mexico from whence they came. Most likely, if we just deported a thousand or so on his doorstep, Nieto would have gotten the message and released Tahmooressi without further a due. Second, Obama could have threaten, once and for all, to close the boarder to illegal's from Mexico. Most likely, just the threat that he would send the National Guard to the border would be sufficient to get Nieto's attention, don't you think? Third, Obama could have threatened to send the thousands of Illegal Mexican felons that are now in American Federal prisons back to Mexico where they belong. Of course, we would have to build that damned fence to prevent them from immediately returning to the states, but we should have done so years ago anyway. Obviously, there are a lot "big sticks" that Obama could have used to obtain the immediate release of Sergeant Tahmooessi from those dreadful Mexican prisons. For reasons that may never be clear, our ineffective spineless, witless wonder of a president refuse to get involved and did little but "twiddle his fingers" while our war hero rotted away in those dreadful Mexican jails. Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?