The Outdoors Experiment

"Killing the idiot box one reader at a time."

A worms defense mechanism

Written By: Thomas - Mar• 11•12

Today I decided to use a paper shredder to make up more bedding for my worm bin. After awhile the shredder gets overheated and I have to wait awhile to use it again. So I checked my collection bin to make  sure there wasn’t any worms that fell. I found one, picked it up, and went to throw it in the bedding when I noticed it secreted a yellow substance.

This made me really nervous sinc the worms aren’t really eating thenewspaper. For some reason they really love fruit and cardboard. A few weeks ago I decided not to feed them for awhile in hopes that the worms would eat up the newspaper. Since they haven’t been eating as fast as I would expect I thought maybe the worms were sick.

Turns out after reading a website via Google that worms have a  defense mechanism. A worm will secrete the yellow liquid when it is stressed out or a predator tries to eat it.  The yellow liquid smells very strong. It obviously made me upset over the smell so I have to assume that the mechanism works.

Hope everyone enjoyed the information. Sorry for the typos not easy posting from a smartphone.

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Hellertown’s Lost River Caverns Tour

Written By: Thomas - Mar• 07•12

On the last post I have all of the pictures of our cave tour. Please mind the duplicates. I’m not familiar with all of the ins and outs of WordPress. Anyhow let me tell you a little bit about the tour. First you walk into the building you see on your left  a collection including several rifles, pistols, spears, fossils, animal skins, taxidermied animals including a giraffe and walrus. Then you descend the ramp into the cave where you have a guided tour. We were shown everything you would ever want to know about that particular cave. The rock formations, local history regarding the cave, and the coolest part of all the underground river to nowhere. Several attempts have been made to figure out where the river goes. One time they put ping pong balls in the water with their information and a reward stamp. No calls were made regarding any of them. Another time and their most successful attempt was to die the water green. A farmer about a mile away reported finding green water in his well.

Local history included rail road workers using the cave as a place to cool off after work. It also had a stage and dance floor where a band would come and play. The cave was utilized during prohibition as a distillery and no one was ever busted as a result of the mayor and sheriff having their stash of liquor hidden in the cave. I think by far the best was the story of the altar that was placed in the cave by the son of the original owner. His son was the first person to be married there. Soon after word got in the local newspapers and several people got married there also.

 

Upon leaving the cave after about an hour long tour you walk in to their gift shop. The gift shop has various things for purchase such as mining tools, gemstones, make your own jewelry, t-shirts, hard hats for the kids, etc. In the case of my wife and I we both purchased Lost River Caverns fleece jackets and a refrigerator magnet. Once your done with the gift shop make sure you find your tour guide again. When you go back up the ramp you will also be given a full tour of the collection you saw when you arrived. Make sure you ask about the spear with the jaguar teeth marks.

 

If you want to know more and are interested in going on a cave tour make sure you visit their website for times, prices, and directions here: http://www.lostcave.com/

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Hellertown’s Lost River Caverns

Written By: Thomas - Mar• 07•12
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Update 4 Juice Fast Vermicompost Experiment

Written By: Thomas - Feb• 02•12

So yesterday I talked about fattening up some of my worms and I found the solution. Since I can’t bring manure of any sort in the house I will have to resort to oats, cornmeal, and eggshells. Manure and cornmeal seem to be the best combination for fattening worms, but Jess will absolutely kill me if the house smells like….. Well you know! I guess I will just have to dream of my future homestead for now. I have this awesome greenhouse layout in my head that I would love to build someday.

Things to do for the day!

1. Make up a whole bunch of eggs for Jess and I so I can have the eggshells.

2. Sort out my prepper pile and find all of the old out of date oat containers.

3. Mix up a batch of fattening mix for my ongoing experiment.

4. Visit the local bank and inquire on a first time homeowners loan.

5.  Pick up my staff from my fathers garage and put a coat of lacquer on it, determine the best survival equipment that I can fit in my tubes, order high visibility paracord for a handle, and determine a good way of wrapping fishing line so that kinks, rotting, and future breakage will not occur.

6. Get lunch

7. Back to work boo……..

Anyhow glad to see people reading this. I hope this trend continues. Since the sun is now shining again and we had such a short winter I may start some of my seedlings earlier just to see what happens, but come back, read, comment, and visit OE’s fan pages located on the right hand side of the page. Thanks for Reading!

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Update 3 Juice Fast Vermicompost Experiment

Written By: Thomas - Feb• 01•12

Quick update for you guys. I’m having an awesome time with vermicompost experiment. A couple things have happened.

1. The 10 worms I put in my second bin I got bored with. So everytime I opened the lid on the 1st bin any worms near the top got added to the second bin. Not sure what it’s up to now, but I plan on waiting a few weeks and looking for cocoons.

2. I tried to put the pulp into a food processer. What happened with it was surprising. The pulp appeared to not be able to break down any further. So I scrapped that idea and left the remaining pulp as is.

3. The first bin has worms EVERYWHERE. On the lid especially I counted at least 30+ babies. These guys are almost microscopic except what I believe is a vein running down the side of them.

4. Juice pulp almost totally gone. I watched a video lately suggesting that you leave the food scraps with a little bit of air flow which in turn will help it grow the microorganisms that the worms love to eat. I did that and got rid of at least 5 lbs. of pulp so far. I still have about 3 more, but I only started off with 1 lb of worms back in December so I don’t quite have the organic demolishing army I am waiting for yet.

5. I didn’t take the advice of several people regarding the citrus and placed the citrus pulp in the bin anyhow. I don’t know if the molding/composting breakdown that I let occur before placing it in the bin made any difference. Also I only put the scraps on one side of the bin in case they needed to get away from it. I left it for 4 hours and rechecked it to find a handful of worms on top of the mass and a small ball of worms underneath. I don’t want to call my advice givers wrong, but I have to let the results speak for themselves.

6. I made the mistake of overfeeding my 1st bin. The smell hasn’t really been an issue and I only sometimes see fruit flys. My concern is the white mites that I noticed early on in December are starting to populate. I believe I have to add more bedding, allow the bin to dry up a little, and not feed the bin for awhile. Even if that means the worms will have to eat newspaper for awhile.

7. Only a handful of worms are fat. I don’t know if thats a sign of overpopulation, not feeding the worms with cornmeal or manure, and or whether my population is old enough to have several mature breeders. I will have to further my research and maybe start a 3rd bin as a test for fattening.

8. I placed a sheet of newspaper flat on top of my original bin to block out some of the light. I believe however that water is accumulating on top of the bin, dripping on the sheet, and allowing to much moisture to stay in the bin. I may just shred the piece of newspaper and see if the bin dries out a little.

It’s almost hiking and gardening season so I will have more coming up soon. Lately I have been researching marketing for an at home wormery, square foot gardening for cash, tossing the idea of around for a startup green business, and farmers markets. Jess and I are currently looking for a house and I am trying to be very positive about becoming homesteaders.  Also a few final touches on the Elusive Hiking/Survival Bamboo Staff and I will post that soon. That’s all for right now. Please feel free to comment. I love reading and responding as best I can to any questions. Also you can e-mail me at Thomas@oeoutdoors.com and don’t forget you can check out some of OE’s  fan pages on the right hand column. There isn’t a lot of content on my fan pages at the moment, but if you come and join I will make a bigger effort!

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Update 2 Juice Fast Vermicompost Experiment

Written By: Thomas - Jan• 10•12

This is my 2nd Juice Fast Vermicompost Experiment update. It’s only going to be a quick update. Today I started a 2nd bin. I shred some newspaper and office paper, wet the paper down, wripped up a bit of cardboard (didn’t wet down. Left dry to soak up extra water in case I over wet the paper), and put everything in the bin. Be careful with office paper though it tends to mat. I still see a bit of matted paper in my established bin. It will break down eventually, but it’s not ideal.

I dug through my 1st bin found 10 worms and added them to the new bin. Than I grabbed a half handful of castings and added that to the new bin. My understanding is that old castings are full of microorganisms that should help develop the 2nd bin. I also put in half a cup of juice pulp spread out on one side of the bin. The pulp consisted of apples, carrots, and oranges. I know you aren’t supposed to use citrus, but from what I have read about worms I believe they are intelligent enough to leave the orange alone until it is broken down enough. If not I only wasted 10 worms in the attempt at science.

What am I looking for in the 2nd bin?:

1. How fast will my population increase if at all
2. Will the worms be affected by the citrus pulp?
3. If the worms don’t process the pulp will the release of gasses and the heat from the composting process kill the worms?
4. Does the process work and can I use the rest of the large amount of pulp I have been waiting to use?
5. Pray that it works so I can use up all the pulp and my wife doesn’t kill me!

I also added a small amount of this pulp to my larger established bin. My hope is that the amount of worms in that bin will make the difference in processing the leftovers from my juice fast.

 

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Update Juice Fast Vermicomposting Experiment

Written By: Thomas - Jan• 05•12

I just finished up day 5 of my Juice Fast. The goal was 7 days, but I didn’t feel any cravings for fast food or sweeteners today so I am officially done with the diet. It has been a lot of ups and downs over the last 5 days, but I did what I wanted to accomplish and that was to remove the junk from my life.

How does this pertain to the outdoors? Well, I couldn’t do anything without having difficulty breathing, my skin has a tendency to break out, I slept more often because I had no energy, I was continuing to crash from caffeinated drinks trying to stay awake, I had a hard time focusing and finishing projects, and I ultimately just wanted to feel better. I couldn’t see myself spending more than one day on the trail of my dream hike of the Appalachian Trail in this condition.

I started this fast because of a documentary called Fat, Sick, and Nearly dead and started doing further research into juicing diets. I found tons of information on people such as Jack Lalanne who died in his 90′s and also a Dr. Gerson who’s clinic claims to have healed 1000′s of terminally ill patients by giving them 13 glasses of juice a day, essential vitamins, and coffee enemas.

The new plan….

1. Juice for breakfast.
2. Eat half meals (Half Wraps, Half hoagies, Half Sandwiches, smaller portions of soup, etc. on dining out.)
3. Ask for a to go container upon ordering so when the meal arrives I can automatically cut it in half.
4. Pay attention to portion sizes.
5. Continue with vegetables and fruits in solid forms.
6. Limit grains, meats, and dairy.
7. No more soda, candy, coffee, energy drinks, cookies, fast food(Unless its vegetable form.)
8. 3 day juice detox every 3 months.

So the Vermicomposting part of the experimenting will be soon. I have 4 1/2 days worth of pulp that I am waiting to start rotting before it goes in the bin. Worms feed on the micro organisms that break down solids and as a result eat the organic matter. I have thrown in frozen scraps that were broken up by a food processer and that has worked well for smell, but not for the amount of waste we put out.

Hopefully by letting the organic matter break down before feeding i can…

1. Quickly increase population sizes.
2. Get rid of organic matter more quickly
3. Reap the benefits from the worm castings for my seedling experiment I hope to start with the spring season.

Thank you guys for keeping up with my blog. I know I don’t update as I should, but I plan on much more in the upcoming months.

Links:

 http://Vermicomposters.ning.com

http://www.fatsickandnearlydead.com/

http://www.gerson.org/

http://www.jacklalanne.com/

For links on books, videos, and juicing equipment see my last post. Links are at the bottom:

http://oeoutdoors.com/uncategorized/juice-fast-vermicomposting-experiment/

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Juice Fast Vermicomposting Experiment

Written By: Thomas - Jan• 01•12

So yesterday, New Years Eve I decided to go on a juice fast and quickly realized I had so much left over pulp and began feeling guilty about just throwing it away. I came to a quick conclusion that I am going to put the pulp in my vermicomposting bin. Lets talk about the Juice today and get on the vermicomposting part of things at a later date when I have more to tell you. Ex. quantities, population increase, etc.

Let me start by telling you I got the idea from the documentary called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. I assumed the process would be extremely annoying and inconvenient, but i’m actually enjoying myself. Improving my life by detoxing from excess sugars, grease, salt, grains, and the hardest one for me stimulants (Coffee, soda, energy drinks, etc) is probably the best thing I could have ever done for my well being.

Several websites mention that you could see side affects from constipation, diarrhea, headaches, lightheadedness, fatigue, body temperature changes, bad breath, painful muscles, etc. Definately doing something so dramatic should lead to a consult with a Dr. before you even begin this.

What are the benefits? Weight loss, detoxification, improved digestion system, skin clarification, mental sharpness, etc. I haven’t personaly noticed any changes yet, but I am still on the detox stage.

So far I have experienced a numbess/lightheadedness, but I am attributing that to the removal of stimulants in my body. I also feel slightly more energetic, but I can now pay attention to my body when it says it’s time to go to bed.

My goal is a 7 day detox followed by a slow introduction of solids again, but with one meal a day being juice. I was only going to do 3 days, but most websites I have read said that most people start adjusting and feeling better after 3 days. So I want to do a full 7 to see if I notice any improvements.

Here’s a few links for juicers and books on Amazon for purchase if you are interested.

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Buzz Bee Air Warriors Hawk Review

Written By: Thomas - Dec• 31•11

I don’t normally buy toys, but I saw this…

THE BUZZ BEE HAWK:

 

 

 

 

 

Picture found at http://www.thetoyshop.com/Outdoors/FoamDartandWaterGuns/Hawk-Air-Blaster/EPN446666

The 1st ever bolt action type air rifle. This rifle is great it’s features include.

A detachable magazine that holds up to eight darts and shells

A moveable bolt action

Automatic shell ejection action

A hidden compartment in the stock that holds four darts and shells

Fires right out of the package no assembly required except for placing the darts in the shells.

Best of all no batteries needed

I can’t say much for the accuracy. I noticed some rounds will turn and will spin out. With others flying approximately 10 feet and stuck to a glass sliding door I was aiming at. If you would like to purchase one click the link below:

 

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Sorry Folks!

Written By: Thomas - Dec• 16•11

I thought it only necessary I make an apology to anyone that accessed my site Wednesday. I was victim of an trojan attack as a result of Malware. If i read the other websites correctly it had something to do with the file zilla program. Unfortunately It not only affected me, but two other sites that I frequent also. Best thing to do is make sure your malware and virus protections are up to date. I suggest malware bytes and AVG free if you dont have a good one already. Again if  my site caused anyones equipment problems I apologize.

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