I was brought up with dogs, sometimes with fish, chicken, spiders, rabbits. Some of these would fit nicely in my present home, but I’ve ‘been there done that’. And I am in the majority who share space constraints in our choice of a pet or pets.
I have always loved open spaces, greenery and nature in all its moods – the sky, water, landscapes,
mountains, seas. Even deserts. But I love some of God’s creatures more.
As a child I would answer “a pony”, whenever my parents asked me what I wanted them to bring back from a trip.
When I became an adult, I kept and rode horses to fulfil my dream. I even fleetingly harboured the ambition to be a ‘horse doctor’ (a veterinarian), no less. Regretfully, our peripatetic existence during my married life was totally unsuited to living with a pet.
When our wanderlust waned there were other preoccupations, and then I was widowed. And not even a year had passed before Covid-19 hit. Like many, I led a somewhat surreal existence.
I consoled myself by lavishing attention on friends’ dogs and wistfully watching tear-jerking YouTube
videos of animals.
Introduction to worms
One day, I emerged from my form of reality and visited a friend’s project – a makeover of her spacious,
tiled back yard. She had revived her raised bed planters and started planting in earnest. By then she had
started to keep composting worms and was producing organic fertilizer for her plants.
I zeroed in on her worm bins and their inhabitants. And before long I had my very first worm palace.
Worm resort
My guest bathroom became worm central and my guest bedroom was turned into a store room for my
‘karung guni’ assortment ranging from brown corrugated cardboard, old newspapers, old plastic totes and empty wine boxes to recycled day curtains (for re-purposed Styrofoam boxes). For the life of me, I cannot remember all the stuff that is in there.
Oh yes, and then there is worm food. Bird seed, bran, powdered egg shells, coffee grounds, used tea
leaves, broken up and powdered oyster, clam and crab shells – to name some.
Worms are much cheaper to keep than most pets. For starters, they do not need to go to a vet.
High cost of dog ownership
In the days when we took our dogs to the government vet, Dr Nair, at Kampong Java, charges started at
$5 which included the dog being muzzled with a length of gauze, manhandled onto an examination table and unceremoniously poked in its anus with a thermometer.
This provided both the animal’s temperature and a sample which was smeared on a slide and placed
under a microscope, to be checked for worms. They also neutered dogs and cats, cleaned maggot-infested wounds, and performed some surgery for very little.
Just a few months ago friends were discussing taking their dogs for their teeth to be cleaned, and I almost fell off my chair when I heard how much this cost!
I cannot remember having our dogs’ teeth cleaned, perhaps that was why they were tossed some gigantic (to a five year old) raw bones and left to get on with it.
Later on, in the 70s, I started to ride and take care of my own horse. I learnt the need to shoe horses and keep their teeth filed. But nothing compared to hundreds of dollars’ worth of cleaning for a toy dog’s mouthful of gnashers; more than enough to provide right royally for my entire collection of worm bins for at least a year.
Benefits of pet worms
My worms can survive without ‘bought’ food; their staples are brown cardboard, newsprint, white matte
paper, vegetable and fruit scraps, egg shells, used coffee ground and tea leaves, a little soil and coco coir. Most of these come from my own home, friends and relatives, or stall keepers in the wet markets.
Worms not only recycle waste; their excretion (worm casts or vermicasts) contains nutrients for the soil in which one’s plants grow.
Most important of all, in my worms I find peace and tranquillity. Time is suspended when I am immersed in their care.
Charles Darwin – on the importance of worms:
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2012/04/19/earthworms-darwins-last-manuscript
Published by: Anne Wong Holloway
(Featured image by Sippakorn Yamkasikorn on Unsplash)
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Anne Wong Holloway feels that, at her age, she is no longer obligated fit into any mould. She prefers the company of her worms to boring people. And she does not suffer fools gladly. She is content with her few staunch friends and says that is more than enough. They say that beneath the carapace there lies a soft and generous heart.
