"They're alive! They're alive!" my husband fairly chortled as he came up from the basement. Just the day before he had put out a distress call to our daughter in Tennessee. "I've had a disaster with my worms! I must have done something wrong, I can only see a few!"
Julie had shared with him details of her husband's worm enterprise, and, after perfunctory instructions, Howard had ordered some from a worm farm that were delivered in the mail. So now I have a bin of creepy crawlers beneath my bedroom!
We found out they eat newspapers, potato skins, tea bags, and all manner of table scraps, with a few exceptions like citrus, meat and other things on a taboo list we pulled up on internet. When Howard gets a new hobby, he goes into it with full-force enthusiasm. We were scouring stores for peat moss, their recommended habitat, when gardening season is not even here yet.
Today I accompanied my worm farmer to the basement for the first time since the little wigglers arrived. He had told me how tiny they were (I think he ordered 1,000), but they have obviously grown wildly, with some almost the size of big, red fishing worms. But no, we are not going into the bait business. The idea is to sell the worm castings (products of digestion) as fertilizer. Supposedly, there is a big market for this.
Worms are often thought of as being a bit detestable, and calling someone a worm is a term of contempt. However, in the Bible, God calls Jacob (Israel) a worm: "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy redeemer, the Holy One of Israel," Isaiah 41:14. Israel is called a worm because she is weak and despised, but God promises His help.
The first verse of the hymn, At the Cross, by Isaac Watts, written in 1707, uses the figurative description of a worthless individual as a worm when it says:
"Alas! and did my Saviour bleed, And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?"
I remember singing that old-fashioned version in church years ago, but the more modern printings read, "Would He devote that sacred head for a sinner such as I?", or "such a one as I." Evidently, we have grown more "politically correct" in 300 years!
It is ironic that recent scientific research and genetic analysis show there is a similarity between man's make-up and that of the worm! Of course! We have the same creator! Actually, this is said to strike a blow to evolutionists, because the genome, or DNA, of the worm (and other species) has not changed in eons, making it impossible for humans to have evolved from anything! Despite the similarities of our genetic make-up, I'm glad the little creatures living downstairs are not my relatives!
I'm reminded of a poem I wrote when our second son was little:
"What's this? I think, as I remove a box from underneath his bed,
I wonder what's inside as I take off the lid.
"Eek! Wiggly, squiggly, squirmy things! I fling
the box across the room.
"Small boys are easy,
It's just their toys that make me queasy! "
They may be underneath my bedroom, but my husband's "toys" are not underneath my bed!
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