Today I met my most bicycle crazy friend Michael at our favorite west-side coffee shop. What the friendly Coffea baristas didn’t know was we were trafficking immigrants without papers.
By my count, that makes a baker’s dozen red wiggler starter packs I’ve sent out there into the prairie abyss. Except for one troubled exception (yes you, Brett), all are doing well and relishing in rotting food. At least the ones I know about. Some packs have gone to total strangers who were opportunists at a workshop or talk. Who knows how many of my first level starters have created starter packs of their own. We could be talking a nation of red wigglers here. And they all came from Uncle Carl.
In fact he’s the one who inspired me to give a lot of worms away. It was the original starter pack from Longmont, CO that Carl brought to me back in ’07 that turned me into a passionate worm poop farmer. So, I’ve been returning the favor by paying it forward. I really only want 3 boxes anyway, and those things make babies like catholics.
The Chosen Ones:
- Jane, a dean at SDSU (first ever starter pack)
- A 5th grade teacher at a Sioux Falls elementary school
- Another teacher, this one hangs with high school science nerds
- My cousin Brett, who lost a game of chance
- Flowerman and Letwan in Pest Control
- Chris Z, my very favorite Extension Educator and rain barrel maker
- Aimee, the bravest sustainability coordinator ever
- A lady at a compost workshop
- An old lady and a young boy at the Garden Show (they took my strawberries too)
- Kim the Trash Talkin mommy with moxie
- The Kindergartners at Lowell Elementary, via Drew
- And, now, He Who Minuses Cars
Did I forget you? Holler.
UPDATE 5/20: Some mirroring on MinusCar. Yes, he said ‘caffeinated.’
bartblog. 
