A few months ago we realized we missed a step in the progression towards responsible parenting. We’ve managed to care for household plants but never graduated to pets. Since we’re not that into house pets (we’ll take barn cats and sheep herding dogs any day) we decided our most practical apartment creature was a worm.

Actually, a lot of worms. Our new project is urban composting. It’s pretty simple and there are lots of places with directions on how to do this (Canada actually has an Office of Urban Agriculture which provides great information about all sorts of composting).

We had to wait a long time for our worms since they are grown on Mt Hood which has been under feet of snow for the past three months. But on Monday a box arrived in the mail. The worms were finally here!

1) Buy two nesting tupperware containers

2) Shred lots of newspaper. Wet in the sink and ring out. The paper should be wet but not dripping. Add six inches of this to the bottom of the container.

3) Add wormies

4) Cover to the top with dry shredded newspaper. Then let the worms hang out for a full day. They can eat their bedding.

The next day we uncovered the dry stuff and added our scraps (which need to be cut up – worms can’t work with whole pieces of fruit). This morning the worms had already found the way to our scraps which made us very excited. Since worms basically eat, poop and make baby worms 24 hours a day, we should have some good compost soon.

We are definitely ready for a baby.