By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
I’ve always liked to sell things, even at an early age. I helped Mom sell strawberries picked from our patch on our three-and-a half acre farm in Claryville. I tried selling greeting cards, though with little success. My brother, Mike, and I sold the brown leaves snatched off the bottom of mature tobacco plants.
Selling mail-order fishing worms was what I remember most.
I was an avid looker at the selling opportunities in the back of magazines our family received by subscription. One day, probably at about age 12, I noticed an ad for “Red Gold Hybrid” earthworms. Seems like it was from a place in Texas, and the ad talked about raising their especially lively wrigglers, a breeding stock.
They said you could do it down in your basement, and it would be a super easy thing to do. They also promised to ship raising instructions along with their worm studs.
I had raised my own flowers and vegetables, coming from seed packs, before. But worms? Out of a box? That sounded a bit odd—and exciting … and yes, not a half mile up the road was the Bob White Club, where hunters, gunners, and FISHERMEN got together to recreate. I could sell those dang worms to them.
I scraped together the few dollars needed and sent my order for a hundred of the Red Golds, and about ten days later, they arrived in a small brown box—a very lightly weighted box. I dug right into the creature cargo and sure enough, found them all balled up together inside a relatively small pile of dark soil inside some packing paper. They were kind of small, but I figured they just sent them that way to save on postage. Surely they’d grow.
I quickly set the ball of worms in a cool place and tore into those instructions for raising the company’s prized earthworms. I learned that I could use cow manure/soil mixture for their habitat, and it had to be somewhat moist, never dry. And this is what I most loved hearing … for food, you could feed those things coffee grounds! My family drank a lot of coffee, and so I figured that wouldn’t be any expense at all.
Over the next few months, I pampered my worms. I procured a small, double-compartment basin from Ted Woeste’s old farm milk house from about a mile up Pleasant Ridge Road. I also dug some of the farmer’s plentiful cow manure mixed with some topsoil, plus gathered some straw to lay on top of the mixture to keep it from drying—not a good thing for red gold hybrids, according to the instructions.
I kept the “tubs” wet, but after a while, the drain holes got clogged. For some reason, this pre-teen kid didn’t stop watering and in time, an awful smell arose, which Mom didn’t like. I took care of that problem, but over the next month or so, whether it was low-cal coffee grounds or stinky soil, the Red Golds weren’t growing.
That didn’t stop me from trying to sell the things.
I put a homemade sign advertising the fishing worms along our road, Licking Pike, and I got customers! I was a little embarrassed about the small size of the wrigglers, so I threw a few extra in with my dozens.
My commercial venture did all right for a while, but I noticed I didn’t get any return customers. Nobody actually told me they were too small, but I knew they were. Business slowed way down, and the red golds didn’t grow any bigger. In the meantime, I read where you could put your worms in sewer sludge, and that would surely fatten ‘em up. The disclaimer for that strategy was that though the slimy critters got fat, they also lost their lively wriggling capacity—not very sexy to a prospective fish, I guess.
Eventually, I lost interest in the project and junked the milk basin tubs, gave the Red Golds their freedom, and started thinking more seriously about getting my driver’s license in a few years.
Dr. Tammy Horn is “as busy as a bee,” but that is so much more than a cliché in regard to this remarkable Kentuckian. When it comes to the bee economy in Kentucky, she may truly be the “queen of the kingdom.” She is also an important contributor to the Commonwealth’s literary landscape.
The Harlan native was named state bee apiarist in spring 2014. She is busier than ever after a career teaching and working in college settings, including Eastern Kentucky University and Berea College, as well as the University of West Alabama.
Her function as a bee apiarist, according to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture, is to identify and eradicate infectious diseases in honeybee colonies, to help educate the non-beekeeping public about the honeybees’ importance, and offer best practice advice to beekeepers.
In other words, Horn tries to create more “buzz” about bees, along with sustaining them. It is her deep passion.
Along with her long list of published articles about the industry, she has authored Bees in America: How the Honeybee Shaped a Nation (2005) and Beeconomy: What Women and Bees Can Teach Us about Local Trade and the Global Market (2011) through University Press of Kentucky.
For those interested in learning how to get into the honeybee industry, or are, at least, are considering it for a hobby, the Kentucky Department of Agriculture has a very easy-to-read and informative piece of literature on its website, Kyagr.com. Use keyword “honeybees” on the site, then access “Kentucky Beekeeping: A Guide for Beginners” on that page.
One of my favorite ways to relax is to go on a hike someplace in the state. The state is replete with scenic and travel-manageable places to enjoy the fun and exercise, but my favorite is Cumberland Gap, where I once successfully navigated an exhausting, yet exhilarating 22-mile round trip of trails.
Other favorites are: Raven Run, Lexington; Red River Gorge, Slade; Cove Spring Park, Frankfort and locally in the Beaumont area of Lexington. Where do YOU like to hike in the Bluegrass state? Looking for YOUR feedback to share in a future KBH column.
Northern Kentucky native Steve Flairty is a teacher, public speaker and an author of five books: a biography of Kentucky Afield host Tim Farmer and four in the Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes series, including a kids’ version. He is currently working on “Kentucky’s Everyday Heroes #4,” due to be released in spring 2015. Steve is a senior correspondent for Kentucky Monthly, a weekly KyForward columnist and a member of the Kentucky Humanities Council Speakers Bureau. Read his KyForward columns for excerpts from all his books. Contact him at sflairty2001@yahoo.com or visit his Facebook page, “Kentucky in Common: Word Sketches in Tribute.” (Steve’s photo by Connie McDonald)