The downside to worms and related areas is that it's not like math . Reason I say that is that if a person in Maine gives me (in Arizona) the a couple of the dimensions of a triangle I can give them all the info they will need to find the rest . Not so with worms . There seem to be no gurus . There are no places to find rock solid bet your boots on this sources of info . There's a lot "well , for me here in XXX we can do this or that" and so on . I have searched and am down to just a few "almost" sure fire methods to use worms . I am now getting ready to use euros to live in the soil in which I garden so their poop will help the soil and as they produce more than I need then I will sell them as bait . The produce will benefit me as well as a few bucks from anglers . It seems that raising worms will work but like the word says "it's WORK" . Start small and learn from your mistakes . A friend of mine had to get out of the biz because shipping costs ate him up . He was selling on E-bay and they demand overnight shipping on worms . I'm sure that if you ask enough people questions you will hear some stuff over and over . You can start with those answers and answer many of the others through trial and error . Keep your worms separate so one mistake does not kill them all . Experiment with small groups . This stifles growth at one end but in case of a catastrophy you are not starting over . It's a slow process but at the rate that worms reproduce you will eventually benefit from their sheer tanacity . I would think that 5 years is a reasonable time to give for this type of project . It's a long time , granted BUT I'm reminded of a girl I knew back east . I advised Nursing School . She said (and I paraphrase) "My God , I'm 40 years old . It will take 6 years since I work . I'll be 46 when I graduate."I replied "How old will you be in 6 years IF you don't do it ?" She is a retired RN and enjoying a GOOD retirement . Work it like a school project . Ask every question of every person . When I was younger I was a pilot . We had a little saying . "When I had 10 hours I didn't listen to anyone . When I had 100 hours I listened to SOME people . When I had 1000 hours I listened to EVERYONE." This is something that "might" support but will at least supplement you . The business will be YOU . It will succeed if you make it succeed and fail if you make it fail .

That's actually what I liked about it (small town). When we were building, I was really impressed by an experience I had in town at that little Tru-Value store by McD's. I'd gone in to get some painting supplies, talking to the clerk, he knew right off where we were building. I'd gotten everything together and he'd wrung me up, and there was another customer who needed help down in the back of the store. In the middle of writing out the check, I told him to go ahead, that I'd wait. His response was that's okay-- here's the receipt. Just leave the check on the counter! Living around the New Haven area all my life (first in West Haven till I was 10, and then in Orange), that was the first time in my life I'd encountered that kind of trust from ANY business. If you think Terryville's small, you ought to see where I am now, in Maine! Bridgton has a year round residency of about 3500 people, although in the summer, that swells to about 8000. :-)

Here's the thing you have to remember about relative humidity: when you cool air, relative humidity goes up. Yeah, air conditioners reduce humidity, but they do it by dropping the air to below its dew point, at which time the humidity condenses out of the air and becomes that condensation that drains away. The air emerging from the vents on your a/c unit is darn close to 100 percent relative humidity for its temperature, maybe 55-60 F or whatever. The lowering of relative humidity comes as a result of this newly-cooled air mixing with warmer room air and having its temperature go up. The other way to dehumidify air is simply to heat it. That's why the relative humidity goes down in the afternoon and you see those 90 - 100 percent relative humidity readings early in the morning when the temperature is at the day's lowest. This is also why a dehumidifier first cools the air to below its dew point and then warms it back up by routing the air first through the evaporator then its condenser. If you only cool the air (and then throw the heat away outdoors, as an a/c unit does) you're only able to dehumidify to the extent that you can continue to cool the air. You take a cool damp basement that's only maybe in the mid-60s to 70 temperature-wise, start running an air conditioner there that's getting rid of heat, and pretty soon you can't remove anymore moisture because your air temperature is getting colder (naturally increasing the relative humidity). And, the air emerging from the a/c is now only a few degrees cooler than the air going in, so there isn't much moisture being removed there either. This same thing occurs if it's a damp day and you run a/c to dehumidify the house. Because you're only cooling the air, it can only be dehumidified to the extent that it, a) needs to be cooled, and b) can increase in temperature after emerging from the a/c system. The bottom line is that precise control of indoor relative humidity is hard with normal mechanical equipment that's available to consumers. But here are a few things to keep in mind: First, a dehumidifier is good only where you can use some heat. They're going to add to the air an amount of heat exactly equal to the power they use, so if you buy a 900-way dehumidifier it's going to add about 3,000 btu of heat to your space. Do you want that heat? If you're also running air conditioning probably not. In cool, weather, or in a place that's normally damp such as a basement, yes - the heat is wanted and it also helps dehumidify. Second, the best way to control humidity with air conditioning systems is with low-capacity equipment running a high percent of the time. You can do this with a variable-capacity compressor, or if you want to do it on the cheap you can supplement your central a/c with a 5,000 btu window unit running constantly. (Combined with raising the thermostat setting of the main system so the window unit does more of the cooling, especially at high-humidity, lower-temperature times such as nights and rainy days.) The key is, keep removing moisture while cooling less.

Ahh. Back to school. With only one of four left in HS, Back-to-School is dwindling. It is so much simpler now. There is only one child in one sport. And only one to track along on their school work. We will have time to deal with our overdue HOUZZ projects now that summer R&R is over. So let me weigh in on the controversial mamby-pamby comment. Hate to see name calling. It's negative and unnecessary. As for patience with the new traffic patterns, this is to the parents who take their children to their bus stops and feel compelled to chat with the bus driver. Please DON'T. It is really inconsiderate. The bus drivers are at work. They don't have time for social hour. It may brighten your day to "brighten their day" but it is not the time nor the place to "make a difference in the bus drivers' lives". I have been part of huge lines where the same parents do it daily. All the cars that are stuck behind the bus (and lawfully NOT passing the school bus) actually have somewhere to go. They sure do. Maybe it is an appointment. Or maybe, just maybe, they are trying to get to their job. Keep that in mind. Fortunately it is a small number of parents who want to chat it up. Unfortunately it has a big impact.