i got worms

That pretty much describes it.
We decided that we wanted to start composting to prepare for our garden's future. We're pretty forward thinking like that. The solution we decided on? Worm farming. Using a starter bunch of worms, you can easily create a box that eats your food garbage and glue-free paper and poops out amazing fertilizer, that costs nothing to operate. Pretty amazing, huh? So that's what we decided.
Through Evelyn the worm lady (available for appointment at 206-501-8844) we received 2 and a half hours of training (not mandatory, though enjoyable) and 3 boxes of worms to start our own bin. She has been raising worms for 18 years and is the only person in washington who manages to keep hers alive all winter. Below are some pictures and videos of her setup. We didn't include any pictures of the numerous compost systems she has tried and declared crap, but did include some of her own design that expedite decomposition and don't cost a hundred bucks a pop (more like 10 bucks a pop).
BEST DATE EVAR.

 Preggo worms (you can tell by the band around the middle that's lighter colored)

 A compost bin that's been covered in paper for insulation

 How'd that get in there?

 Worm video!

One Huge Update

Well, thus far our blogging experiment has not gone as well as we had hoped, meaning we are now getting around to posting another blog 7 (?) weeks later... Maybe that just means we haven't had anything interesting to write about until now and that's our excuse. That's not really true, but anyhow...

Tomato Update! So We're gonna retry on the tomatoes and strawberries. The big drawback to using grow lights is that you have to be careful which bulbs you use and when. Simply put, using High Pressure Sodium bulbs are great during the flowering phase, but tend to make your plants a little gangly if you use them during the growing phase. We thought we could correct this by using both HPS and MH bulbs together, but we were wrong. So our tomato is too gangly, and we are going to restart.
Also, we have to learn how to pollinate our flowers on our own, or invest in a bee hive. I suspect the landlord would have something against a bee hive in our attic.
As for the strawberries, they are diseased and the soil is full of washington-grown toxins and slugs, so we're gonna burn the soil and start over with those too.

Some before pictures of our tomatoes:

And after:

You can see how HUMONGOUS that tomato plant has grown, but no tomatoes. That's because we need to learn to pollinate before the plant gets so big. 

You can see in the back that we've started on a food storage supply. We'll keep adding to it as we go grocery shopping but we think its a pretty good start! We got pretty lucky with our apartment because when we moved in all those shelves had already been built by the previous family. 

As far as what we're doing on a day-to-day basis these days, it's been school for me, work for Benjamin. He took a little break from school and is now going back starting summer quarter in a few weeks. I'm still finishing up my degree and have postponed my graduation date to March 2013 to work on pre-reqs for the Master's in Teaching program that I'm planning on applying to. That means 30 credits of history classes, which should be an adventure. We'll both be going to school this summer and Benjamin is going to continue to work during the school year because he makes pretty good money at the restaurant as a server. He enjoys his job; it's a good job to get you through college. We feel very blessed that he's worked so hard to get such a good position - starting as a busser and now working as a server - to provide for our family. 

Let's see, we've started serving at the temple here in Bellevue which has been so amazing! We feel blessed to live so close to the temple. Some folks on our shift drive 90 miles to get to the temple each week! One of the reasons we wanted to live in Bellevue was to be close to the temple and we've been trying to become ordnance workers since we were married and now we are! We started mid-April and work each Saturday from 9:30-4. I can't say enough good things about the temple - I would encourage any couple, especially newlyweds, to try and serve in the temple if you can make the commitment, it's just incredible!

Our cats are doing well and we love having them here. I was hesitant at first because I didn't want the hair and smell problems that come with cats, especially in an apartment. But we've found ways to deal with those, like putting the litter box on our balcony. They are getting so big, especially Julius. You can see in the pictures how different he looks and how much he's grown! We took him to the Humane Society on Tuesday to get him neutered and while he's just fine and back to his curious, cuddly self, it was difficult to leave him there with strangers. As we were getting in our car, Benjamin said to me, "Let's never leave our kids in daycare." It was tough! Even if we were just leaving our cat. I've loved getting woken up in the morning to Julius pawing my face and snuggling with me - his paws are so soft and he just kind of touches my face like he's telling me to wake up and give him some attention. We love them...

 Baby Julius

 (They go crazy over wall shadows...)

(And we always find them in such odd positions...)

Not so baby Julius, but still adorable

Last update: Girls Camp. This month we had our fundraiser (which I was in charge of) and the weeks leading up to it were just crazy - I had no idea what I was doing, I kept thinking of things that could go wrong or something I might forget - so after we finished our project I felt SO relieved. Now, I'm trying to get some forms from the girls and wrapping up those loose ends. We had a meeting on Thursday and I finally found out what my responsibilities at camp will be - I'm basically a "mom" figure for a unit of girls (12-18) while the YCLs (Youth Camp Leaders) are running most of the activities. My partner in this adventure is Shannon Adams, the YW President of our ward and the branch (combined because it's  a pretty small bunch of girls), and she has been SO amazing and helpful in this calling. Our group is called "Blades of Glory" because the theme this year is HFL - Heavenly Father's League - and each unit is a sport. Ours is ice skating and, fingers crossed, there will be tutus. I'm starting to get excited about actually going to camp now, before I was just stressed out. I'm looking forward to getting to know these girls better and some of the women in our stake. It'll be a fun opportunity and I'm sure I'll learn a lot from my time there.

I think that's it for now. We'll be doing a separate post on our worm farm adventures - stay tuned!

Plants, Marxism, and Kinectimals

Hello World!

This is Benjamin and Kirsten's blog. We'll post regularly. We won't sign who it is, so it's up to you to guess who's writing.

Today is Benjamin.

Anyway, to catch you up.

We've been married for 8 months and 9 days, today. That's why we decided to finally buckle down and start a blog.

We have no children.

We have two cats. One is named Julius and is orange and is a fluffball.

The other is named Lumberjack and she is a fluffball that doesn't move as much.

We have no children.

We recently started a growing operation in our closet. Soon we will be producing black market tomatos and strawberries that will be for our own consumption, and yours if you ever decide to visit. Pics to come.

The strawberries are flowering like crazy, and looks like we'll be getting about 20 berries per plant, which is a lot more than I expected. I am not so disappoint.

The strawberries are Ozark Beauties, everberrying, which means that we will have berries 4Ever. Apparently they're really popular for their survivability, disease resistance, and large, sweet berries. That's a good sign.

The tomatos are Big Boy, and are set to be at maturity by the end of may. That means that we will have alot of tomatoes, in a relatively short time. They're supposed to be huge, too, with average size being about 10 ounces and maxing out around pound. That's a good name for them.

Statistics on our power bill to come.

In other news, we just bought an xbox and kinect, and Benjamin is sore. If anyone dares challenge, the internet is open.

So the female in this relationship is taking a film history class, and we just watched (probably) the Marx brothers best film- Duck Soup (1933). If you're wondering what the movie is about, it has nothing to do with ducks or soup. Hilarious.

Xbox: Stop. No, stop. No, go back. Stop. Stop. STOOOOOOOOP.

The growing station that we're using right now features two 400 watt bulps, one HPS (high pressure sodium) and one MH (metal halide) light, which we run concurrently. Basically, the idea is that one will provide the half the wavelengths the plant needs, and the other will fill in the rest. There's been some studies that suggest using the bulbs in courses, one for each growing stage, but we're trying to imitate natural conditions as best as we can, so we run both simultaneously. I'm hoping by the time we get more in tune with what our plants need for growth, we'll have and LED rig and won't have to worry about the cost of electricity. More on that later.

To make sure we use the lights as efficiently as possible, we have several sheets of styrofoam coated in reflective material, catching the light and bouncing it back at the plants. Apparently it's working, because the plants are going gangbusters. I'll try to get some before and after shots for you.

Well, I need to go change the laundry. Life is good at the Sjavik's house. Until next time!

--us