Saturday

Did a worm composting demo and signed some books at Green Springs Garden in Alexandria today. They had a plant sale going on; it took a lot of impulse control to walk around and look at plants and not take any home with me.

I did not have to bring a worm bin or worms because they’d arranged for a worm farmer to be there and supply all of that for me. So I didn’t bring any worms with me, but then I realized that it might have been fun to take some worms into the studio with me on Monday when I do the Diane Rehm show. Worms lend themselves to radio, they really do. So I bought a little baggie of castings with some worms in them from the worm farmer and once again, I’m sitting in a hotel room with some worms.

Joined a sweaty throng of my fellow Americans on the mall today. They’re getting set up for the dedication of the WWII monument so the mall was criss-crossed with temporary fencing, stages, tents. A bit of a mess. And here’s a surprise: the landscaping around the mall is really not so hot. I was amazed, for instance, at how weedy the White House lawn was. All around the mall, with a few exceptions near some of the Smithsonian buildings, I saw dull, dismal little plantings like the kind of thing you might see around a dentist office parking lot. Why is that? You’d think that we’d have world-class gardens on the mall, or plantings that show off native plants from across the country, or state wildflowers, or something like that.

Back tomorrow to check out the Smithsonian. The worms will stay in the room. It’s too hot for them out there.

Sunday

Went to the National Archives and saw the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, Bill of Rights…it was really moving to see it all…to see the Constitution with Washington’s handwritten corrections, to see the smudged signatures. As I was entering the room, the guy behind me said to his wife, “This isn’t the real Declaration of Independence, right? It’s just a replica.”

Nope. That’s why they call it the National Archives. This is the real deal.

OH—and here’s an idea for the lousy lawn on the Mall (and it really is lousy—I’ll post a picture in a couple of days)—worm castings! How about a National Worm Castings Project on the Mall? They could raise the worms at the National Botanic Garden or maybe at the Natural History museum, some kind of hands-on exhibit using food scraps from the cafeteria, maybe. This lawn needs some help, and I think worms are the answer.