15 February 2011

ohmmmm

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It's raining so much the earthworms are heading out on the pavement to get some air. They think they are saving themselves when they are committing suicide. I've been out on worm rescue missions about three times an hour....

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love, 99
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6 comments:

  1. http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/worms-appear-rains.html

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  2. Yer info guy here is full of shit. Worms drown, but, yes, they must stay moist or it kills them. It's fine that they come out in the rain except for when it stops raining and they are "miles" from the dirt that will keep them from death by drying... PLUS the getting run over and stepped on part.

    I was a worm farmer! I'm an ACE on earthworms.

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  3. I recently saw a pbs show about earthworms. They don't drown underground when it rains. They come up because they can.

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  4. If the dirt is too saturated, they come out. If it isn't, they don't. When you rescue them, you put them on the dirt that is just damp instead of soaking wet and they burrow immediately back down. They are pretty much fine out in the air at night because it doesn't dry them out, but neither can they stay in or on ground too wet without drowning. There are some two-foot long guys about as wide as a fat pencil that live in the clay-like soil on my Mom's back forty. I'm not sure how they do it in the winter when it's almost a lake out there... probably burrow even deeper to get to SOME air or come up and float. But your basic earthworm and especially the red ones flee from too heavily saturated dirt like lightning... or they drown. One end of my main bin would get some storm action when it was coming from a certain direction. Everyone on that end would migrate to the drier side and the ones that were too low in the bin started wriggling out between the boards.

    When it's raining hard the worms come out on the pavement to breathe, but if they're not big enough they STILL can't breathe and they go all smooshy instead of shriveling up into little toasted dry guys.

    PBS is ALSO yankin' yer chain. Turn off yer tv!

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  5. My front lawn is full of night crawlers. When it rains they come up, but when the go back down the leave piles of dirt and droppings behind. Over the years it seems they are excavating my yard and raising the level of the soil. 25 years ago my yard drained well even in the heaviest rain. Now the center of the lawn is about 3 inches higher than the edge adjacent to my house, leaving big puddles between my front porch and the yard.

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  6. You'll probably want to do something about that. A grader? A French drain? That can't be good.

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