#and some mealworms

[swagging-back-to]

spent another $100 on my mice todayyyyy

[jensownzoo]

My meal worm farm setup (for chicken treats). Super easy, takes a few minutes of maintenance in the morning and a slightly more involved one every few months (still only takes a hour).

Has a drawer for pupae, one for beetles, and the rest for various stages of meal worms plus one extra to sift frass (poop) into. Other equipment is a stainless steel colander for sifting and a plastic spoon for transferring pupae and beetles to their new drawers.

I use either bread crumbs or rolled oats for bedding/dry food and carrots or cabbage leaves for moist food. Sometimes they get other stuff, but that's mostly it. Started by ordering a 5000ct pkg by mail and fed out at least half of that while the cycle got started.

The chickens get a "happy hour" on Fridays where they get a half handful of adult worms. They also get all the debris and any dead beetles (crunchy!) when I do the major maintenance.

I keep this setup in what functions as a mudroom for me because it's right next to the kitchen (I do the daily maintenance while waiting for the breakfast skillet to heat) and also so that I don't have to hear them constantly. It's a pretty loud dry rustling/chewing sound--okay periodically but continuously would drive me batty.

In addition to chicken treats, I also get significant amounts of frass:

(Roughly two cups from one sifting)

Frass is an excellent plant fertilizer, like most manures. High in nitrogen. I use it in my soil mixes and sprinkle it into the containers that I grow peppermint in to help with leaf production.

Anyway, was just starting on my big maintenance (which is why there's so many worms in the beetle drawer and very little bedding) and thought I'd share.

[jrueships]

jaren jackson staring majestically off into the distance, being emo, and gg is there

[fortunatelyfresco]

Hello and Trick OR Treat and Happy Halloween! I am a Real Human Man, and I am Not 3 Bearded Dragons in a trench coat! I rang your doorbell with my Human Male Hands, which has fingernails! No claws here! Please give me Normal Human Man treats, perhaps some dried mealworms, or the flowers from your hibiscus plant.

My partner says: "Oh thank god, someone to take all these fucking mealworms. I dump handful after handful of my mealworm colony into your bag, crying with relief."

[parrot-parent]

Carmen is back to bioactive, after 8 months lol.

[whatthebec]

More Of Him

[slettlune]

there's a little bird building a nest under our building's protruding roof shingles and i am willing to die and/or kill for this potential bird family. i desperately need to figure out what species they are so i can offer top notch nutritious food

my friend told me "just wait until the chicks cheeping ruins your sleep" like no you don't understand i'm a coparent now, we're expecting!!

[tincansamurai]

i don't feel bad about giving dr house some waxworms bc he's way too skinny and hasn't eaten any significant amount of anything for a a few days. after finally recovering from constipation, this guy once again fucking loves to eat worms

[ahamkara-apologist]

Had a dream where I had a centipede infestation so Drifter came to my house and fried them up for me with chili, salt, and lime, but I woke up after I tried one bite and now I'm sad- that shit was soooo good augyggg

[dracolizardlars]

So back when I had a lizard I thought his vitamin supplement powder smelled good to eat, now even weirder the *dried mealworms* I have for my pet snails (they need protein!) smell pretty good to me as well??? I gotta try getting my hands on some intended for human consumption lmao

[justareallyboredfangirl]

glad i put a whole 8 inches of bedding in the enclosure just for this little ding dong to completely clear out a cubby of bedding and then go to sleep

[pumpkingeorge]

A thing I've noticed in the differences in behavior in male ducks and male chickens.

A rooster will find a tasty morsel in the grass. He will peck near it and make noises for the hens to come over so they can get the tasty morsel.

Drakes, however, will run over a hen to get the tasty morsel, then hump her afterwards.

[scorittanius]

inefficient animal

[buam]

Honestly I can’t blame the postal worker; my advisor lost his grub ordering privileges after he failed to pick up a delivery from the front desk on time and they all hatched and escaped.

It recently became department policy to purchase all our animal care supplies online and have them shipped, but my work location (public park) doesn't have a mailbox, so we've been getting things shipped directly to the post office. Today I went to pick up a shipment of several hundred superworms but the postal workers are insisting that it's not possible to have packages shipped directly to the post office. I gave them a tracking number which revealed they were delivered a couple days ago and now they're looking for them. Somewhere in the post office are 500 lost worms.

[goldfish-sandwich]

You ever just get high and watch compilations of mealworms eating random stuff?

[nereidprinc3ss]

promiscuous

in which spencer reid doesn't like that flirty!reader is going on a date. he makes that known. (bandages universe)

flangst, 18+ for discussions of sex warnings/tags: gn!reader I think, mentions of going to a bar/going for drinks, very suppressed mutual pining, jealousy from Spencer, reader implied to engage in casual sex, reader calls themself a slut somewhat disparagingly but like as a joke, it all gets resolved, he is very sweet, he rambles when he's nervous a/n: oh God I love them so much they are like so in love and they literally have no idea at all because they're so dumb... but WE can tell.. turning point for them

“Penelope wanted me to confirm that you guys are coming to drinks with us tonight?”

It’s something of a standing tradition for the BAU on the last Friday of every month, and usually you’d agree, but tonight, you have other plans. 

“Raincheck for me,” you say, sliding some files into your bag which you do not plan on reviewing. “I have a thing.”

“What thing do you have on a Friday night?” Morgan asks skeptically. You don’t bother looking at him as you hide a smile. 

“A date, Morgan. You jealous?”

“You’re going on a date?”

You’d nearly forgotten Spencer was in the room until he spoke—he’s been in one of those quiet moods of his where he sort of floats around everyone else and makes himself insubstantial. As you cast him a sidelong glance, trying to figure out his tone of voice, you see he’s frowning. Nearly grimacing. His brows are drawn so tight you’re worried he’ll give himself a headache. 

“Uh, yeah. I am.” Suddenly, your parade feels a little rained on. 

“With who?”

You pause, looking back down at your desk with a new frown of your own and shaking your head as if you could clear it that way. “Just… some guy from OT.”

“Dalton?”

Ding ding ding. Somehow he got it right on the first guess, and for some reason, you wish he hadn’t. You don’t want Spencer knowing who you’re going on a date with. It feels wrong. 

“Does it matter?” You evade, shoving your things with a little more force into your bag. 

“Well Dalton is an idiot, so I guess I’m just trying to figure out why you’d go out with him.”

“And if it’s not Dalton?”

“Then I’d tell you all the guys in OT are idiots and you shouldn’t waste your time on any of them.”

“Alright—” Morgan passes between your desks, placing a friendly hand on your back as he does. “I’m gonna let you two hash this out by yourselves.” He gives you a look, eyebrows raised, unsmiling, that means, go easy on the kid. It makes you feel terribly guilty. And more than a little defensive. 

“Night,” you call halfheartedly. He only waves as the glass doors swing shut behind him, leaving you and boy genius alone in the bull pen.

Silence falls, cloistering you as you finish packing up together. It seems to magnify the buzz of the overheads. You notice him intentionally lingering, and you sling your bag over your shoulder with a sigh. 

“Okay,” you say, turning to face him with your whole body. He seems uncomfortable with that, but you’re not letting this go. “What is this? Why are you mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you,” he mumbles, refusing to meet your eyes. “I just think—”

“Yeah. You’ve made your thoughts abundantly clear. I don’t know why you’re judging me for going on a date.”

“I’m not judging you! I just think you deserve better than a guy who looks like he… snorts protein powder for every meal and has less capacity for intelligent conversation than a mealworm.”

“Okay. Do you have someone in mind?”

The words come out a little sharper than you’d meant for them to. A little louder. Spencer looks like a scolded puppy as he swallows. 

“Not specifically. Just—someone more like you.”

He just doesn’t get it. You fold your jacket over your arm. 

“Yeah, well, until someone more like me comes along and asks me out, Dalton is the best I’ve got. I know he’s not my soulmate, Reid. But he asked me to drinks, and I said yes.”

The room is mostly dark. Only a few fluorescents remain on to cast Spencer in an almost clinical glow against a dark grey background. You’ve been here before. It feels like an interrogation. An environment where you’re practically begging for the truth without saying please, but there’s only room for measured dishonesty. 

Spencer speaks under his breath, fiddling with the strap of his own bag. “He’s not good enough for you.”

“What do you want me to do?” It’s an exasperated, confrontational sigh. Your arms raise and fall heavily back to your sides. Another long grey hallway of silence that leads nowhere. When it becomes clear he doesn’t have the answer, or he’s not comfortable sharing, you straighten. “I’ll see you Monday, Reid.”

Your spirits are completely dampened as you trudge to the elevators. What once seemed like an exciting opportunity now only serves as a depressing reminder that you’re wasting your time with a man who isn’t what you want. Maybe you should just call the whole thing off. 

“Wait,” Spencer calls, half-jogging to catch the open elevator. His bag bobs with every step, pens and things jingling around inside. It’s endearing, even though you’re upset with him. Your arms remain stubbornly crossed, but he makes it anyway. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your mood.”

You laugh dryly. “Yeah, well…”

“It’s just that…” he sniffs and looks down, hair falling in front of his face. He really is sweet, even when he’s kind of a dick. He’s full of so much sincerity he doesn’t know what to do with it all. “I know how you are—you’re special, and funny, and intelligent, and, and Dalton—all those qualities are wasted on him. He looks at you and he just sees a pretty face. It may sound trite, but… he doesn’t deserve you.”

You sigh again, heart squeezing. The glowing light on the panel of floor numbers flickers. “I know your heart is in the right place, alright? But it’s not about who deserves me or who doesn’t. I’m not a prize. I’m a person, and people like to feel wanted. Sometimes, it’s just—it’s about who’s there, and who likes me enough to say it to my face. Sometimes that’s all I need, and I know you didn’t mean it like this, but when you say he doesn’t deserve me, it really seems like you’re not considering what I might want at all. Maybe Dalton is what I want.”

God—this elevator ride is like, comedically long. 

“Is he what you want?”

At least he has the bravery to ask. 

You glance over at Spencer, washed out bloodless and looking like he’s prepared to flinch, like he doesn’t know if he’s ready for the answer. The doors ding and slide open, and stale air whooshes from the chrome compartment into the lobby like a held breath finally exhaled. You swallow. 

“I don’t know why it matters to you.”

“Because you’re my friend and I want to see you happy,” he insists, trailing after you as you speed walk through the lobby. Every click of your heeled boots echos. 

“Then shouldn’t you be supporting me?”

“I’m not going to support you in making the wrong choice.”

The conversation spills out into the bitter-cold parking lot. You turn around to face him. 

“Respectfully, you have no idea what’s right or wrong for me. I don’t like whatever this is,” you say, gesturing with a finger between the two of you, as if the conflict were a tangible thing—a phone line hanging between your hearts. “I don’t know if it’s, like, jealousy, or some misplaced feeling of possessiveness, or protectiveness, or—”

“It’s not like that!” He splutters. 

“Okay—so what is it like? If you want to see me happy, why don’t you support me in pursuing the things that make me happy? And if that’s meaningless sex with some guy from operational tech, so be it! You are not in a position to give your two cents on who I sleep with!”

“I wasn’t trying to—I wasn’t even thinking about—about sex! I don’t care who you sleep with!”

He’s turning increasingly pink. 

“Fine. But if you weren’t thinking about sex, if you thought I was under any illusion that Dalton was going to be my fucking Prince Charming then clearly you’re not equipped to have this conversation. I know he’s an idiot. I’m not looking for my soulmate—thank you, though, for reminding me that it’s completely fucking pointless to even pretend. I love you, Spencer, but grow up. And stay out of my business.”

And with that, you’re turning on your heel and marching toward your car. Spencer calls your name—once. Twice. The wind lashes against your bare arms and stings your eyes as you fumble with your keys. 

It’s just the wind. 

Nothing else. 

-

Maybe you’re simply not meant for love. 

It’s a narcissistic thought in the sense that everyone has it at some point in their lives—everyone falls victim to the delusion that they are so uniquely wretched, so singularly incapable of being understood by another person. It’s the universal illusion of solitude. And you’d thought yourself above it for a long time. In college, there was fling after fling. Your bed was never empty if you didn’t want it to be. In your young adult life, you have other priorities—but you rarely have to be alone. 

Now, though, as you sit on a rickety metal stool deep in the bowels of the Bureau’s records room, banished to sort through files in search of one that had been mishandled during a cold case and is now supposedly relevant again, (although you’re not sure it actually exists) you’re pondering the nature of those connections you’d been so sure your life was full of. Were they all artificial? Designed by you subconsciously to manufacture a sense of complacent satisfaction? To stave off the aching, gnawing loneliness in your gut that you’re only now becoming aware of and has been eating you away in bigger and bigger bites since Friday night?

Morgan was supposed to be just as arm-deep into a box of dusty manila folders as you are now, but he talked his way out of it, and you’re sitting in an awkward twenty-minute-long-so-far silence with Spencer. Which isn’t helping anything. 

The tension comes and goes like the moon pulling the tides. It’s like you can sense it wafting off of each other—you feel it in the prickle on the back of your neck and the buzz in your stomach when he’s about to say something, and you glance over, and he’s already looking at you with his lips parted, and then he doesn’t say anything after all, and the silence reinforces itself. 

It gets frustrating. 

Not to mention this task is equal parts mind numbing and infuriating. Maybe Hotch just hates you. 

Eventually Spencer clears his throat, and you welcome the distraction. 

“What year are you on?”

You give him a long look which he doesn’t reciprocate, because you want to say, really? But eventually you pick up the edge of the box you’re sifting through and double check. 

“Uh… June 1979 through August 1979.”

He nods matter-of-facts. “They should be making us wear gloves.”

Your incoming tangent spidey senses are tingling. It’s not exactly an opportune time, but it’s better than silence. 

Plus—you’re pretty sure this is his idea of a peace offering. 

“Why’s that?” You mutter, flicking through yellowed papers. 

“Wood pulp paper contains an alum-rosin mixture to minimize ink bleeding, but in the presence of moisture such as that introduced in trace amounts by our fingertips it generates a diluted sulfuric acid solution. They didn’t start adding alkaline buffers into paper until 1986, and the cellulose chains that comprise the structure of the paper inevitably shorten and break down over time, so we’re actively degrading these documents by touching them without gloves.”

“Did you say sulfuric acid?”

“I said a diluted sulfuric acid solution,” he clarifies, utterly missing the point of your question as he so often does in that disarmingly endearing way of his. “Sorry, by the way.”

You look up from a photo of bloodied bell-bottom jeans. He’s caught you by surprise. 

“For what?”

“For—”

He struggles with the words—you watch his lips form a few silent ones before he gives up on the nonchalant act and sets his file on his lap. He can’t seem to tear his eyes from it, but you don’t mind. 

“For everything on Friday. I… I know it was none of my business. I sometimes struggle with… keeping my thoughts to myself. Especially when it concerns someone I care about. But I wasn’t judging you, I swear. What you said about—about sex, I—” he sighs, obviously frustrated with himself, and pushes a bit of hair out of his eyes. “That’s not where my mind was at, at all. Whatever you… do, or don’t do, is none of my business. Obviously. You don’t need me to tell you that. You don’t need me to tell you anything. I just really wanted to clarify that I wasn’t shaming you or judging you for—”

“Spencer,” you say gently, cutting him off and reeling him in before he can dig any deeper. 

“Yeah. Sorry.”

He glows under the canned lighting, a soft aura of white blurring the edges of him. The stale room buzzes. It’s otherwise quiet down here. Peaceful, almost. 

From anyone else, you might consider it overstepping. 

You wouldn’t have been willing to forgive them in the first place. 

But it’s not anyone else. 

“Thank you, for apologizing. I really appreciate it.”

He glances up at you, sort of hunched—always trying to make himself smaller than whatever force created him had intended. The deep brown of his eyes is melted and swirling and sweet and nervous. He’s not naturally good at these interpersonal things, but he’s always trying. He’s always pushing himself for you.

Do you ask too much? 

Do you offer enough in return?

Struck by sudden insecurity, you look away. Go back to your files. 

Perhaps you made a mountain out of a molehill and told him to climb it. 

“I mean, I am kind of a slut. I wouldn’t blame you for thinking so,” you laugh airily. “Maybe it was a good reality check.”

A trailing silence. An air conditioner kicks on. 

“What? That’s not—that’s not at all what I was trying to say.”

“Spencer, it’s fine.”

His stool squeaks as he sits up straighter. 

“No, I really want you to understand. Even if I cared or thought about how many people you might sleep with—which I don’t—and even if I determined that you were… sexually promiscuous, I wouldn’t assign a moral value to that judgement. Sexual promiscuity is observed all the time in the animal kingdom, it’s biologically sound and justified and in less misogynistic cultures where bonds forged between humans weren’t socioeconomic arrangements dependent on women being viewed as commodities first and foremost, it’s completely unremarkable. But I haven’t made that determination. All I know is that… you’re you. And that’s all that’s ever going to matter to me.”

Silence falls. Your voice gets stuck in your throat. 

How does he so casually show you more kindness than anyone else has ever managed to show you in your life?

Spencer takes pity on you. 

“And… we’ve talked entirely too much about something that’s none of my business today.”

It’s wry and earns a chuckle from you. Even Spencer manages a chagrined smile. That same strand of hair falls loose as he looks down. Light bounces from his self-effacing smirk. 

You fiddle absentmindedly with the fraying corner of a folder, and you’re about to open your mouth, about to speak into the sparkling cloud that the easy laughter and the melted tension has left in its wake, and tell him how much you appreciate him and how kind he truly is and undoubtedly whatever you say will be made more beautiful because of it—because of the affection you have for each other—and then you stop, eyes catching on the case file between your fingers. You frown. 

“Wait—what’s the case number we’re looking for?”

“91 18 00063 7.”

You hold the file up, eyes alight. 

“I found it.”

Spencer frowns and takes it without asking. You watch as he reviews the number in tiny black typeface along the top of the document. His brow scrunches in disbelief. 

“I genuinely didn’t think we were ever going to find it,” he murmurs after leading through the photos and glances back up at you. “We had thirty years of boxes to look through and you found it in under an hour. You’re like magic.”

It’s impossible not to smile. You feel all warm and sparkly as you snatch it back from him and stand, straightening your jacket. 

“Will you tell that to Hotch?”

“I… will tell anyone who will listen,” he assures you, and you’re confident he’s following as you make your way through the maze of stacks. “Are we not gonna clean up our mess?”

“There are people who will take care of that later.”

“Yeah. Like me. During my lunch break.”

“Don’t worry. You’re going to be well rewarded for your efforts today.”

“What does that mean?” He mumbles, and you can practically hear his blush. 

You smile to yourself. 

Still got it. 

for more of these two, check out the bandages universe masterlist!