Latest / SpaceTomatoes / Cathy Nesbitt - Worms in the Kitchen, Laughter Yoga, and Educational Silliness S2-EP20

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Cathy Nesbitt - Worms in the Kitchen, Laughter Yoga, and Educational Silliness S2-EP20 · SpaceTomatoes

• 0:00
  How I came to laughter, it was 2012, and one more person said,
• 0:05
  ew, worm's in the house, about my worm business.
• 0:09
  And I was like, that day, I'd heard it hundreds of times in the previous 10 years.
• 0:14
  Hundreds. I should have kept track.
• 0:17
  And I wasn't paying attention.
• 0:19
  You know, they say to listen to what your clients want.
• 0:21
  I was like, no, no, no, you need this.
• 0:25
  People don't buy what they need.
• 0:26
  They buy what they want, and they definitely didn't want what I was flogging.
• 0:30
  All right, everybody.
• 0:52
  Welcome back to another episode of the Space Tomatoes podcast.
• 0:56
  I'm one of your hosts, Havoc.
• 0:57
  I'm the other guy, LX. How you doing? Welcome back. All those things.
• 1:04
  And today we have a special guest with us, Kathy Nesbitt, who is a health and wellness advocate
• 1:09
  and founder of Kathy's Crawley Composters, Kathy's Sprouters, and Kathy's Laughter Club.
• 1:16
  Welcome to the show, Kathy.
• 1:20
  Thank you. I'm so excited to be here. I was muted and then I'm like, ah, how do I unmute?
• 1:23
  unmoved well awesome so what got you into vermicomposting oh we're jumping right in okay
• 1:33
  well why not yeah why not right well it's the 24th anniversary of kathy's crawley composters
• 1:41
  selling worms by the pound for indoor composting i know wow can you imagine crazy uh so i'm located
• 1:48
  in Canada, just north of Toronto, largest city in Canada. And in 2002, the landfill for Toronto
• 1:55
  closed. It filled up, the landfill filled. Wow. Right? Wow. That's a lot of stuff.
• 2:03
  That's a lot of garbage. Yes, indeed. And we didn't have a place to send our garbage.
• 2:11
  Because nobody wants a new landfill in their backyard, right? NIMBY.
• 2:15
  not in my backyard and so we started to export our garbage to the U.S.
• 2:21
  Sorry almost a thousand trucks a week we're making the way from the greater Toronto area to Michigan
• 2:27
  that's a lot of traffic that's a lot of garbage and a big waste and I was like oh my gosh who are
• 2:35
  we exporting our garbage out of the country and I had a solution indoor composting with worms and
• 2:42
  It really had nothing to do with the environment, although I guess it kind of did.
• 2:47
  I really wanted people to be aware of a way that they could manage their waste and create something wonderful, which is black gold.
• 2:56
  The worm poop is black gold.
• 2:59
  So I set forth.
• 3:01
  I don't have an entrepreneur background.
• 3:02
  I came from an employee background, like work hard.
• 3:05
  In 30 years, you get a gold watch.
• 3:07
  Why do you need a watch when you retire?
• 3:09
  I don't know.
• 3:10
  probably probably gold-plated these days there are no watches anymore nowadays it's just a piece
• 3:17
  of lexan it's like here you go uh yeah so i would have a table wherever i could educating people
• 3:26
  and i heard many times oh worms in the house and i was like no no no you need this i wasn't paying
• 3:31
  attention you know for entrepreneurs it's like the 80 20 rule 20 of your clients will give you
• 3:37
  80% of your revenue, not with worms because they reproduce more than rabbits.
• 3:43
  And so I don't have repeat customers 24 years.
• 3:46
  Can you imagine?
• 3:49
  Wow.
• 3:49
  Someone should get a prize.
• 3:52
  Me.
• 3:53
  I agree.
• 3:54
  Don't give these big corporations any ideas.
• 3:57
  They'll genetically modify worms that'll die off after like one life cycle or two.
• 4:01
  And they'll try to sell us those kind of worms, I'm sure.
• 4:04
  Oh, true enough.
• 4:04
  Yeah, you're right.
• 4:06
  I can't take that back.
• 4:06
  You're not supposed to say that out loud.
• 4:09
  Okay.
• 4:10
  We are recording here.
• 4:13
  They're going to hear it now.
• 4:15
  We didn't say which corporation.
• 4:17
  That's true.
• 4:19
  All of them.
• 4:22
  Yeah.
• 4:23
  So I started to do school workshops and over 100,000 students have seen my presentation in 24 years.
• 4:31
  That is amazing.
• 4:32
  That's impressive.
• 4:33
  Thank you.
• 4:33
  Yeah.
• 4:33
  It's so beautiful.
• 4:35
  I have to say, you know, we're making an impact every day.
• 4:39
  If we smile at someone or we hold the door, we don't or whatever it is, we're making an impact.
• 4:44
  We don't always know.
• 4:46
  And I've had the privilege because I've been doing this for 20 years, over 20 years.
• 4:50
  I've met people that I was in their grade three class and then they see me exhibiting at a farmer's market or a show or something.
• 4:59
  And they'll come up and they'll go, oh, Kathy, you came into my grade three class.
• 5:03
  and because of you, I became an environmental lawyer.
• 5:08
  Wow.
• 5:09
  Right?
• 5:09
  Like because having worms in the class and seeing the benefit of the worms.
• 5:13
  So they might have said because we had worms in the class,
• 5:15
  maybe not because of me, but it is because of me.
• 5:17
  Well, I mean, I think there's a huge,
• 5:22
  this is something that I think is amazing, right?
• 5:25
  And we should be doing more of this, right?
• 5:28
  There's plenty of time for, you know, in school in general,
• 5:33
  to introduce people to things like composting in general, you know, and, and useful things.
• 5:39
  Yes, absolutely. Right. And, and even people that live in an apartment, right. I always tell people
• 5:44
  grow something and they're like, well, I live in an apartment. Okay. Five gallon bucket,
• 5:49
  drill some holes in the bottom of it, fill it with soil and plant a tomato plant. It will grow
• 5:54
  wonderfully in a five gallon bucket. Just make sure you're using food grade. If you can, you know,
• 6:00
  But still, you can grow your own tomatoes and you can then create your own compost in a small compost bin, which you can use for the feeding of that plant.
• 6:11
  So you're introducing people into this system of regenerative food.
• 6:19
  And sustainability and self-governance.
• 6:23
  Yeah.
• 6:24
  Right?
• 6:24
  There's no food shortage.
• 6:26
  We're sold down the river.
• 6:27
  and I know it's not that kind of show, but we really are told
• 6:31
  that we should spray the weeds when we could just eat them.
• 6:35
  Right. No, absolutely.
• 6:37
  And that is a road we can absolutely go down.
• 6:40
  I'm happy to go down that road because...
• 6:43
  We are that kind of show.
• 6:44
  That is the show.
• 6:45
  I know.
• 6:46
  We very much are in tune with that.
• 6:49
  People picking dandelions out of their lawn and spraying weed killer
• 6:53
  And what they don't understand is the dandelion is one of the most nutrient-dense plants you can find anywhere.
• 7:02
  It self-propagates, and you can use it medicinally as well, right?
• 7:09
  And people just completely miss this.
• 7:12
  So, yeah, this is absolutely in line with everything we do.
• 7:16
  Yeah, it's so beautiful.
• 7:18
  So that's what I like to help people understand is, you know, because they go, oh, you're worms.
• 7:25
  And that's their first response.
• 7:26
  If you're afraid of something or you find something creepy or icky, you're not doing research to find out more about it.
• 7:34
  Like you're just shutting off.
• 7:35
  I keep listening if you're afraid of worms.
• 7:39
  Yeah, so doing the school workshops, you know, when I started going into schools, I was like, okay, now I just have to wait 20 years for the kids to have buying power.
• 7:47
  Yay, I made it.
• 7:50
  Be careful what you say.
• 7:52
  You're also introducing them to something that I think is largely lost in society.
• 7:58
  We don't teach people how to, you know, you're taught from an early age that scraps, waste goes in a garbage can.
• 8:08
  Why?
• 8:09
  It's all very beneficial.
• 8:11
  You can compost.
• 8:12
  You don't need a lot of area.
• 8:14
  And if you have a vermicompost set up, you need less area.
• 8:19
  Believe it or not, those things chew through garbage like nobody's business.
• 8:24
  Right?
• 8:25
  Right.
• 8:26
  Yeah, it's so beautiful.
• 8:27
  I think for me, the beautiful part, or one of them, is being close to Toronto,
• 8:33
  six million people in the greater Toronto area.
• 8:35
  So it's Condoville.
• 8:36
  It's a concrete jungle.
• 8:38
  There's very little green space.
• 8:40
  Many of these children, you know, we have a big immigrant population.
• 8:46
  And I think like some of these children have never even seen a worm, never mind held one.
• 8:52
  So when it comes time, when I go into the schools, hopefully the class is getting a worm bin for the school.
• 8:59
  And then they can see the students get to see a worm bin from set up to harvest.
• 9:04
  and the grand finale of my workshops is after the children have set up the worm bin holding the
• 9:12
  worms and adding them into the system and that piece is so impactful you know they're shaking
• 9:18
  they're holding their hands and they're they don't know what's going to happen and I say they don't
• 9:23
  have teeth they can't bite us they might just poop on you but it's good luck it's fine
• 9:27
  and it gets loud you know they're squealing people not not running around because i do
• 9:36
  insist that they stay seated not run around if they're squealing well that's fine but i say after
• 9:41
  the worm bin is set up oh and just so you know worms don't like noise you're welcome teachers
• 9:49
  and it's so sneaky right and and sometimes teachers will see me at um at a at a show and
• 9:59
  they'll say oh what a great idea oh i'm afraid of worms what do i do i say here's what you do
• 10:05
  you have me come in do a workshop we set up the worm bin you tell the students how ridiculous
• 10:10
  your fear of worms is yeah and then you let them manage the worm bin because they want to
• 10:15
  so what uh what variety of worm are you using i've got red wiggler worms and european night
• 10:24
  crawlers um there are four there are thousands of types of worms only four have been identified
• 10:29
  for vermicomposting and that's the red wiggler european nightcrawler
• 10:34
  african nightcrawler and perionics which is a tropical worm okay there probably are others
• 10:40
  yeah i think uh in pretty much everywhere i've looked at it all it it seems to mostly
• 10:48
  grav gravitate towards the red wigglers they have the best marketing campaign
• 10:53
  they probably do they got good pr pr people for the working for them would you like to see my
• 11:03
  family photo i know for the people listening you won't be able to see but here we go oh nice
• 11:08
  that's a picture of a pound of red wiggler worms look it's right in front of my face
• 11:12
  that's my face wow that's 800 to a thousand worms in a pound um and each one has five hearts
• 11:20
  and when i learned that i said wow so when i go into schools you know depending well it doesn't
• 11:26
  matter what the grade is i say how how i ask them how many hearts a worm has or what do they think
• 11:30
  and then we get to five and then i say anyone good at math and you know a few hands go up and i say
• 11:36
  let's see and then I ask them like even if it's grade one or grade two they haven't done
• 11:41
  multiplication yet it doesn't matter I still ask them all these questions so I say how many
• 11:46
  so I have a question if each worm has five hearts how many hearts in a pound of worms and I've said
• 11:52
  that there's a thousand worms in a pound and it's it's just so wonderful there's so many ways to
• 11:57
  incorporate the worms into the learning math and English and poetry like writing songs drama
• 12:06
  it's endless what can be learned. And some teachers have reported having a worm bin in the classroom,
• 12:14
  some of the students will eat better. You know, they'll be eating their cheese strings or whatever,
• 12:18
  chips or whatever. And they go, oh, Mrs. Brown, I want to feed the worms. And hopefully the good
• 12:24
  teacher will say, oh, thank you for wanting to feed the worms and your interests. Worms don't
• 12:28
  eat that. If you want to feed the worms, you have to bring in a healthy snack. So then they bring in
• 12:33
  an apple and they go okay i brought in an apple i want to feed the worms and they're all good
• 12:37
  now you got to eat the apple they just want the scraps yep that is awesome i think my third grade
• 12:43
  mind might be thinking i don't i just can't get it can you eat worms uh is that a is that a thing
• 12:50
  like i i know i've seen it on like those those game shows where they dare people and you know
• 12:54
  dangle money in front of them to eat that kind of stuff i just curious i would imagine you know They pure protein They probably taste awful Like if you ever gone fishing and the green goo coming out of the worm
• 13:06
  that I'm sure that's probably bitter so that they taste awful for the,
• 13:10
  the birds or the fish, whoever's eating them.
• 13:13
  So that's when they get stressed, they secrete that green goo.
• 13:18
  I would imagine that they are edible. I don't, I don't know anybody that's at,
• 13:23
  well, actually that's not true. You know,
• 13:24
  I was at a workshop and it's so fun what happens.
• 13:27
  I did a whole school in a small town from kindergarten to grade seven.
• 13:33
  The last one was the six, seven grade.
• 13:37
  And two guys walked in and they're like, they looked at me and they said, we're going to eat a worm.
• 13:42
  And I said, okay, good.
• 13:44
  And so came to the end of the session, set up the worm bin, time to add the worms in.
• 13:49
  Now we've added eight pounds of worms in that school.
• 13:51
  There was eight worm bins.
• 13:52
  and so one of the boys had disappeared i don't know where he went he was hiding somewhere and
• 13:58
  the other one was there so he's holding up the worm like like you know asking me hey can i and i i i
• 14:05
  said just ask your teacher i said it's fine just know they grow in manure you know trying his last
• 14:11
  ditch effort to save the worm so he asked the teacher now it was a male teacher i don't know
• 14:18
  if it was a female teacher what the response would have been but he says to the teacher can i eat it
• 14:22
  and he said, go ahead, Owen.
• 14:26
  So the kids were chanting.
• 14:27
  It was like a Disney movie.
• 14:29
  They were like, eat it, eat it, eat it.
• 14:31
  And I was so engaged.
• 14:33
  I wanted to chant too.
• 14:34
  I was having so much fun.
• 14:36
  The teacher was sick of Owen having all this attention.
• 14:39
  So he said, oh, and you have 10 seconds to eat the worm.
• 14:41
  So he's like, eat it, eat it, 10, 9, eat it, 7, 6, eat it.
• 14:47
  And then Owen pops it in his mouth.
• 14:48
  He had no choice.
• 14:50
  The green goo is coming out.
• 14:51
  I mean, oh, oh, and sorry for you.
• 14:55
  He pops in his mouth.
• 14:57
  Then the chant goes from eat it, eat to swallow it, swallow it.
• 15:01
  I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is the best day ever.
• 15:07
  Wow.
• 15:08
  Owen had no choice.
• 15:10
  He couldn't spit it out.
• 15:12
  He had to swallow that worm.
• 15:13
  So he did.
• 15:14
  At the end of my session, I say to the students, oh, you know, I hope you enjoyed this.
• 15:18
  Let your parents know how fun it is.
• 15:20
  I look at Owen, I'm like, Owen, I don't want to hear from your parents.
• 15:25
  And I hope your belly's okay.
• 15:27
  Right.
• 15:28
  Yeah.
• 15:29
  Owen got himself in that situation himself.
• 15:31
  Yeah.
• 15:32
  Yeah.
• 15:32
  Which was a great gift for me because whenever, because because of, there's a movie on how
• 15:37
  to eat fried worms.
• 15:38
  And because of that movie, children often, or I think it's a book too, will often say,
• 15:44
  oh, I'll eat a worm or something about eating a worm.
• 15:47
  So now I say, ah, that's been done already.
• 15:51
  That's been done in one of my workshops.
• 15:52
  No need to repeat that one.
• 15:55
  Another one, like I have so many wonderful stories because it's so fun.
• 15:58
  I was at a Catholic school, and I don't know if it matters,
• 16:00
  but there I was at a Catholic school.
• 16:02
  I was there two days.
• 16:03
  So the second day I go in, again, the last workshop on the first day
• 16:08
  was the seven eights, the older kids.
• 16:12
  When I went in the next day, the principal came in and said,
• 16:15
  But about half a dozen of the boys from yesterday's session will be joining you, and they will be apologizing.
• 16:23
  I was like, oh?
• 16:24
  And he said, after your session, they went to wash their hands.
• 16:27
  They took some worms with them.
• 16:29
  I mean, it's not funny, but it's funny.
• 16:31
  And then they tried to get them to stick on the ceiling in the bathroom like spaghetti.
• 16:35
  Oh, no.
• 16:36
  And they got caught by the principal.
• 16:38
  Oh, my goodness.
• 16:40
  Oh, how wonderful.
• 16:41
  I mean, I'm laughing because it's funny.
• 16:45
  And then people go, well, that's how it starts.
• 16:48
  You know, you abuse the worms and then you're on to cats.
• 16:51
  And then it's like, well, okay, but I'm not sure.
• 16:54
  I don't think there's a correlation there.
• 16:56
  I think you could chalk that up to kids being kids, I would say.
• 17:01
  I think so too, right?
• 17:03
  I just thought it was hilarious.
• 17:04
  I had to do my best when they came to apologize.
• 17:07
  Some burst out laughing.
• 17:08
  I was just like, oh, like, like, as if I was, you know, offended that they, they took my children and were trying to try to stick them on the roof.
• 17:19
  When you put it like that.
• 17:21
  Right.
• 17:22
  Oh, my goodness.
• 17:23
  So fun.
• 17:24
  Okay.
• 17:25
  Well, that sounds like a, that sounds like a really fun time.
• 17:28
  So you, I mean, how long have you been working?
• 17:30
  Yeah, I guess 20 plus years now with, with different schools and, and are they all very local to you?
• 17:36
  Have you done travel to go to other school districts?
• 17:42
  You know, you're never, or I shouldn't say never,
• 17:45
  but it takes a long time for you to become appreciated in your own town.
• 17:52
  So I travel a lot.
• 17:54
  There's one school in my town.
• 17:57
  I mean, there's several schools, but there's one that has me come in every year.
• 18:01
  But other than that, it took a long time before even my own town had me in.
• 18:06
  And I've had media. I mean, I've had so much attention about this. Yeah. So to answer your question, I travel far and wide.
• 18:17
  Awesome. So what would be the most interesting travel to a school and presentation you gave?
• 18:25
  well i'm located in ontario i was a school in quebec in another province got funding and my
• 18:34
  husband and i traveled to quebec stayed overnight this was all paid by the school and then they wrote
• 18:41
  a book and i got to write the forward for the book um about their worm project so that was that
• 18:47
  was pretty cool that is really cool that is pretty cool and in toronto is a an interesting city that's
• 18:53
  for sure. I've been there for, for business travel a few times. And, uh, I will say this,
• 19:00
  the, the, uh, the habit trail is insane. Like there's, there's an entire underground city
• 19:08
  that exists in, in Toronto so that when it's cold, you don't have to go above ground, right?
• 19:14
  You can, you can like from my hotel, I could go downstairs and be in this little habit trail
• 19:20
  and walk to, you know, a lot of places.
• 19:23
  And I guess there's trains as well down there,
• 19:26
  and I didn't get to experience that.
• 19:28
  But I thought that was quite a lovely experience, to be honest.
• 19:33
  I think the only issue I had is there is a very large church.
• 19:38
  It's right there.
• 19:39
  I think it's the government building,
• 19:40
  and they have the big square there with a really nice space, right?
• 19:45
  Fountains and everything else.
• 19:46
  But my hotel was directly overlooking that.
• 19:49
  my window was and there was a church bell that went off every hour every hour all of the hours
• 19:57
  all of them god is watching is it is it called the habit trail or is that just a describer that
• 20:05
  you've used for it that was just my descriptor it's called okay it's called the path all right
• 20:11
  and it is it's really cool i mean it's the whole thing's tiled up it it's just it's cool and
• 20:18
  there's vendors in there and stuff, or there were when I was there.
• 20:22
  I don't know if that's, you know, how that works, but it was really neat.
• 20:27
  Yeah, 2020 changed a lot down there, you know, with people not working.
• 20:32
  Like, that's really commuterville downtown Toronto.
• 20:35
  I don't think anyone really lives down there.
• 20:37
  Most people are commuters.
• 20:39
  So it was really empty, and the path was a lot of those stores are no longer.
• 20:45
  People had more time to stay home with their worms, right?
• 20:48
  There you go.
• 20:50
  You know, talking about that, 2020 was our best year ever.
• 20:54
  And we actually ran out of worms, right?
• 20:56
  Because the schools were closed.
• 20:58
  So parents were calling saying, oh, we're looking for a project for the kids.
• 21:02
  Like, what do I care as a businesswoman how the worms get in the house?
• 21:05
  And then we ran out of worms.
• 21:07
  And people would be so excited.
• 21:09
  Oh, I've been waiting five years to do this, da, da, da.
• 21:11
  I'd let them tell their whole story and be all excited about getting started with worms.
• 21:15
  And then I'd have to break the news.
• 21:16
  I'm sorry, I don't have any worms.
• 21:18
  and then they get mad what what do you mean why don't you have worms well there's a this thing
• 21:22
  going on in the world everyone shut and you know supply chain all the things and so they were mad
• 21:28
  and i'm like well you know five years ago i was waiting for you yeah right yeah i actually uh i
• 21:36
  not to be rude but i can't help it i i'm one of the admins for for uh uh a group that has a number
• 21:46
  of chats for self-sufficiency, gardening, birds, livestock, communications, arts and crafts,
• 21:57
  you know, things, just making stuff and being self-sufficient, right? And it was amazing when
• 22:03
  that came along, the uptick that we saw. And it has declined, but not as much as it ticked up,
• 22:11
  which I think is an amazing thing.
• 22:14
  And hopefully you've seen the same thing in your business as well.
• 22:20
  There was probably a big uptick, and like you said,
• 22:22
  you couldn't supply the worms,
• 22:24
  but hopefully that uptick has also continued for you.
• 22:28
  It has indeed.
• 22:29
  People don't always want to do the whole system.
• 22:32
  They want to jump to the end product.
• 22:34
  So people want the black gold, the worm food.
• 22:37
  They absolutely want that.
• 22:39
  They don't necessarily want worms in the house.
• 22:41
  And it's really funny.
• 22:43
  People come to my place to pick up the worms.
• 22:46
  And a guy came and he's like, I've been following you for years.
• 22:50
  But my wife wouldn't let me have worms.
• 22:52
  So anyway, she's gone.
• 22:54
  So I was like, oh, I'm sorry.
• 22:55
  Like, I thought she was like, no, she didn't die.
• 23:01
  I was like, oh, okay.
• 23:03
  So he's going to, I said, oh, that's interesting.
• 23:06
  And so as we were talking, I said, you know, it's interesting.
• 23:09
  because I think I keep on wanting to start a dating site.
• 23:13
  Like, hey, you got worms, I got worms.
• 23:16
  Because it's not gender.
• 23:17
  Like it's not women don't like worms and men do.
• 23:22
  It's mixed.
• 23:23
  It's both.
• 23:24
  Sometimes it's men that are standing with their hand on the door handle
• 23:27
  waiting to get out.
• 23:29
  And the wife is like, yay, I can't wait to use the compost.
• 23:33
  So I said, oh, I want to start a dating site.
• 23:35
  And then I said, oh, you know, I also have European night crawlers.
• 23:38
  And he's like, no, no, I just want red wigglers.
• 23:40
  I'm like, oh, another grants to my website.
• 23:41
  Like, oh, I'm exclusive.
• 23:43
  Are you exclusive?
• 23:43
  Just reds?
• 23:44
  Or you want...
• 23:45
  Awesome.
• 23:49
  You talk about the black gold, which is actually literally true.
• 23:53
  Because if anybody hasn't bought worm castings before, they're kind of expensive.
• 23:58
  So I'm sure it's a lot more cost effective to get your own.
• 24:01
  And if you said they multiply that much, maybe we should get into a...
• 24:06
  My wife really loves gardening.
• 24:08
  So yeah, that would be a great idea.
• 24:10
  How would you get started in something like that?
• 24:12
  Maybe you could run us through like a quick setup.
• 24:15
  Absolutely.
• 24:16
  So for the do-it-yourselfers, your audience, a Rubbermaid bin or some kind of tote is perfect.
• 24:24
  Okay.
• 24:26
  Then it's portable.
• 24:27
  Then you can kind of move it around.
• 24:30
  You need a carbon-nitrogen mix.
• 24:32
  So the carbon that I use is shredded paper.
• 24:34
  could be leaves, straw, cardboard, drink trays, egg cartons, any combination of those browns.
• 24:42
  And then the nitrogen is your food scraps, coffee grounds, tea bags, manures are beautiful.
• 24:50
  So if you're doing it outside, I wouldn't suggest bringing in cow manure or whatever
• 24:54
  into your kitchen, but you know, if you have a, well, you're in Florida, right?
• 25:00
  Are you in Florida?
• 25:01
  Yeah, we're in Florida.
• 25:02
  yeah so it's havocs in north carolina i'm in florida we do have chickens could we use those
• 25:07
  or is that too hot for them uh chicken manure is too hot that's too high in uh ammonia you can use
• 25:13
  some of that um i would just be say be careful with chicken manure because it's really it's
• 25:20
  really hot it's really i can load you up with some horse manure if you want and goat manure okay
• 25:26
  It's beautiful.
• 25:27
  It's a beautiful thing.
• 25:28
  Any of the vegetarian animals, so horses, cows, goats, sheep, guinea pigs, rabbits.
• 25:37
  Alpacas.
• 25:38
  Right?
• 25:38
  And rabbits are really wonderful.
• 25:40
  If anybody's got rabbits, some worm people have their worm bin right under the hutch.
• 25:47
  So the poop, the urine, the shavings fall right into the worm bin.
• 25:50
  It's just this lovely recycling system.
• 25:53
  and nothing to be done.
• 25:55
  Then you just take out, again, the black gold
• 25:57
  or take out some of the worms I both know some rabbit people They you know rabbit people are a little weird I don know but maybe worm people give them a run for their money I don know Yeah I would say that we a little bit weirder because you know
• 26:10
  our product isn't quite as cute as rabbits.
• 26:13
  Oh, that's a matter of opinion.
• 26:14
  I know their food.
• 26:16
  I think they're cute.
• 26:17
  We just filled up a bunch of beds yesterday, and, you know,
• 26:21
  so I got to play with some worms and discard some grubs,
• 26:25
  but mostly I had to play with the worms.
• 26:27
  So in North Carolina, you have the largest, maybe the only, international worm conference every year.
• 26:36
  Oh, really?
• 26:37
  Yeah, in North Carolina.
• 26:38
  Where is that?
• 26:41
  Is it Raleigh? Is that where the university is?
• 26:44
  Yep. Well, we have several of them, but that's one.
• 26:48
  Yeah, so I believe it's at the University of, I thought it was North Carolina, University of North Carolina, is that?
• 26:55
  UNC, yep, okay.
• 26:57
  Yeah, it's there.
• 26:58
  And it's been going for over 20 years.
• 27:00
  I spoke there a couple of times in the early 2000s.
• 27:04
  I'll have to check that out.
• 27:06
  And when I started going, there was like 30 people.
• 27:09
  And when I went maybe six years in, it had tripled to 90 people.
• 27:14
  And I said, wow, here we are, the international experts.
• 27:17
  Very cool.
• 27:18
  And Florida, I used to get my worms from Florida.
• 27:21
  yeah so Florida Texas California Georgia are the large worm growers in the states
• 27:28
  yeah we have a lot do you run into a any kind of problems with like the heat in Florida because it
• 27:34
  does get hot like if you if you leave them outside or in the cold maybe up where you are
• 27:40
  or is that ever a problem yeah absolutely yeah the worms are temperature sensitive
• 27:44
  that's why it's perfect for everywhere winter in Canada too cold heat in Texas Florida whatever
• 27:51
  too hot so having them inside is perfect like people go what about what about rodents and
• 27:57
  raccoons it's like well if you've got those in your house you've got a bigger problem than the
• 28:00
  worms and not to laugh at people's like rodent problems but um you know same with cottage country
• 28:07
  if people are afraid of um bears you don't might not want to have a composter outside to attract
• 28:12
  bears to your yard so if they're in the house no no problem all right yeah how about overpopulation
• 28:19
  in the container that they're in.
• 28:21
  Has that ever become a problem?
• 28:23
  Never, never, never.
• 28:24
  And here's why.
• 28:25
  The worms have a mechanism, a built-in mechanism.
• 28:28
  They will regulate their population based on available space
• 28:32
  and available food.
• 28:34
  So as long as they have enough room, they're going to keep on reproducing.
• 28:39
  If they start running out of space or out of food,
• 28:43
  not that they stop reproducing because I think that's part of the process,
• 28:48
  but the adults die off to make room for the babies.
• 28:52
  So at a certain point, you would have a lot of worms like,
• 28:55
  whoa, look at all the worms we have.
• 28:56
  So you could take some out, set up another bin so you can expand your system.
• 29:02
  And that's what I say to people.
• 29:03
  I get the question, like, how many worms do we need?
• 29:06
  We're a family of four.
• 29:08
  I ask them a few questions because it's not about number of people.
• 29:12
  It's lifestyle.
• 29:13
  Are you vegetarian or vegan?
• 29:15
  Do you prepare your food from scratch?
• 29:18
  Or even if you're vegetarian or vegan, you can buy prepared meals or eating in restaurants.
• 29:25
  So if you're doing those activities, you're not producing the food.
• 29:27
  So if somebody wanted to manage all of their organic matter, I would say to weigh your waste for a week or two and see how much organic matter that can go in the worm bin you have.
• 29:42
  and then the worms eat half their weight once they're established so you can kind of do the
• 29:47
  math so if you had a pound of worms half a pound of food waste per week three to four pounds per
• 29:53
  week which is really substantial yeah and and then some people will go wow we create way more than
• 29:59
  that okay well good so you can still start with a pound in three three or four months you're going
• 30:04
  to double your population you can expand your system double the input and so on and so on
• 30:11
  You can start with the amount of worms that you need.
• 30:14
  But if you're new to this, you know, if something goes wrong,
• 30:18
  it goes wrong fast, your worms may die off.
• 30:21
  And they're expensive worms.
• 30:24
  In Canada, we're selling them for $100 a pound.
• 30:27
  But that's Canadian, so like 50 bucks.
• 30:32
  Is the exchange rate that bad?
• 30:35
  Not quite.
• 30:35
  It just feels like it.
• 30:36
  Oh, okay.
• 30:36
  Yeah, my neighbor actually has a bin set up.
• 30:43
  And I've gone back and forth with doing this, and here's why.
• 30:50
  I do want to do it, I think, but the problem that I have is there are months at a time
• 30:57
  where what we have for food waste, what we call greens, is exceedingly high.
• 31:04
  because of the fact that we grow a lot of food.
• 31:09
  And we have livestock, right?
• 31:12
  We have chickens, turkeys, geese, goats, horses.
• 31:16
  So, you know, we have big compost piles already.
• 31:20
  But the thing that most interests me is what he brings to me,
• 31:25
  like, about once a month during the summer months is the liquid.
• 31:31
  and that right there you know he'll give me a gallon jug full of worm compost tea essentially
• 31:39
  right uh and that right there i can turn into 10 gallons of of material that i can go and spray
• 31:46
  onto our soil right which is excellent i mean it's amazing stuff so i guess my question is what do you
• 31:56
  What do you think the feasibility of a bin with, say, I don't know, 20 pounds of worms is?
• 32:04
  And what would that look like?
• 32:07
  Size-wise?
• 32:09
  Yeah.
• 32:10
  So the guideline is a pound of worms per square foot of surface.
• 32:14
  You would never start with the maximum, right?
• 32:17
  You would want to have more space than you have worms to allow them to grow.
• 32:22
  um rather than depth you want surface area because they're surface feeders okay so you
• 32:30
  don't need a really deep container or system um you know there there are lots of ways to do this
• 32:36
  for the heat and the cold um you can have them in ground when i started my worm business i had an
• 32:44
  article in biocycle um the the compost recycling magazine in the states and because of that
• 32:52
  article i was contacted by a school in michigan in lansing doing vermicomposting and they had me
• 33:00
  come down so i went to visit them which was so fun um and they had at their schools because
• 33:07
  michigan has similar climate to where i'm living um they had worm bins some were um like kind of
• 33:15
  three feet into the ground so they're getting so they're kind of not below the frost line but
• 33:19
  they're protected from the cold and then they would be insulated with a styrofoam or different
• 33:26
  ways and others were on top so like a box that again was insulated and yeah it's quite amazing
• 33:34
  what what people can do to to grow the worms outside if they don't have indoor space or
• 33:40
  or you create more than than you could have i wonder if anyone's ever tried because now my
• 33:47
  brain's working i'm thinking what if i just had like a couple like maybe six of the one pound
• 33:54
  worm bin type setups and put them directly into the soil in our high tunnel and just allowed that
• 34:03
  to leach into the high tunnel yeah yeah that that could work um i had the opportunity to go to
• 34:10
  Guatemala to work with worms. And in Guatemala, they had like PVC pipe that had holes in it.
• 34:18
  And then those were shoved into the ground, like three feet down, holes throughout. Their food
• 34:24
  scraps go in the top of the tube. The worms are in there. And then the worms come and go,
• 34:30
  but they come back because that's where the food is. But they go out and they're fertilizing all
• 34:35
  around do do do do do and then they move that that tube gets moved around the garden see i now now
• 34:42
  i'm my i'm spinning right now i'm like hey wait a second here that that's doable yeah so that's so
• 34:50
  when the worms go underground how far do they actually go down typically uh these worms again
• 34:55
  are surface dwellers so they don't they really don't go down very far they don't no okay they're
• 35:00
  They're not like the dew worms that live below the frost line.
• 35:04
  All right.
• 35:05
  So when it rains, they come up?
• 35:07
  Is that the kind we're talking about?
• 35:09
  They breathe air, right?
• 35:11
  They have to come up for air?
• 35:13
  Correct, yes.
• 35:14
  So when it rains, is that why you see them on the surface?
• 35:17
  Correct.
• 35:18
  A few reasons, yes.
• 35:19
  They can't swim.
• 35:21
  They come up to escape from the rising water.
• 35:24
  And it's easier to mate on a flat surface.
• 35:27
  Oh, okay.
• 35:27
  Oh.
• 35:28
  So they actually surface to mate as well?
• 35:33
  Not strictly, but they come out because it's not sunny,
• 35:37
  so they can come out and be free from getting sunburned and dying.
• 35:43
  I can understand all those reasons.
• 35:45
  I find those true myself.
• 35:51
  That is pretty amazing stuff.
• 35:53
  So what is it that makes these specific types of worms different from, say, just your standard garden variety earthworm?
• 36:05
  You want to know the big secret?
• 36:07
  They're small.
• 36:08
  They're too small to fit on a hook.
• 36:10
  Oh, okay.
• 36:12
  So they get to survive.
• 36:13
  Although people use them for trout and salmon fishing, like for stream fishing.
• 36:18
  It's their voracious appetite.
• 36:20
  So the nightcrawler, the dew worm that lives in the grass,
• 36:25
  or not in the grass, but in the earth, it only eats carbon.
• 36:29
  It's not a composting worm at all.
• 36:31
  It won't eat nitrogen.
• 36:34
  So they're really not composting worms.
• 36:36
  They're the plows of the soil.
• 36:38
  They're turning the soil, and they're also eating carbon, not nitrogen.
• 36:43
  Right, right.
• 36:43
  Okay.
• 36:44
  That's interesting.
• 36:45
  And there's, you said, four varieties that are known to be composting worms.
• 36:53
  Correct.
• 36:54
  So would that cover, obviously you've got subarctic, you're in subarctic conditions,
• 37:01
  but you've got arctic as well as like Saharan desert style conditions
• 37:08
  where I imagine it's probably unlikely to be that fruitful.
• 37:12
  but outside of that you're pretty much globally something that anyone can do
• 37:19
  absolutely and you know everybody eats i think that composting and warm composting is something
• 37:27
  we can all do just for the for the planet for sustainability just to be you know better stewards
• 37:34
  of the earth um because we're all eating and if we call it if we call it garbage it is yeah you
• 37:41
  know, when I go into schools, when I'm saying, okay, so you start like this, I have the worm bin
• 37:47
  with the batting and stuff. And then I say that in three to five months, they'll convert this to
• 37:51
  this. And I hold up a bin of worm poo. And then I dip my hands and I'm like, oh, look at worm poo.
• 37:57
  So almost pure worm poo. And my goal is for somebody to say, or several somebodies to go,
• 38:03
  ew, poo. Because then that's my trigger to go, oh, thank you. Yes. English is so interesting.
• 38:10
  If we call this poo, then, oh, ew, gross.
• 38:12
  We should just flush it away.
• 38:13
  Gross.
• 38:15
  But if we call this black gold, then we go, oh, this is precious.
• 38:19
  I want to hold on to this.
• 38:21
  This is valuable.
• 38:23
  And that's the same with, like, if we think about words that get used,
• 38:27
  that get flung around, it's like, oh, if we change that word to this,
• 38:32
  it just changes the whole feeling.
• 38:35
  And that's how it is with worm compost.
• 38:37
  I mean, it's, it's, and then I asked them, Hey, do you like eating fruits and vegetables?
• 38:42
  Cause they grew in worm poo.
• 38:45
  Right.
• 38:46
  And that's true with, I would say pretty much, you know, non-carnivorous animals and, and
• 38:55
  slightly as well the omnivores But anytime you get into a a you know a herbivore type of an animal the poo is not at least to me it not disgusting it it that what i gonna eat from
• 39:12
  i mean literally you know and it's havoc eat from poo i do i mean you know if you think about it
• 39:21
  right that at the end of the day we're taking you know chicken manure you know goat uh horse
• 39:28
  as well as green scraps and waste, and we're just putting them in a pile.
• 39:33
  And then we are going to use that,
• 39:35
  and our plants are going to take in all of that nutrition,
• 39:39
  and then they're going to produce fruit for us to eat.
• 39:43
  So at the end of the day, yeah, I guess I am eating the poop.
• 39:47
  Well, I also have a sprouting business,
• 39:50
  and so sometimes I'll have sprouts,
• 39:52
  and they've either gone funky or whatever happens.
• 39:55
  I put them in my worm bin,
• 39:57
  and because it's such beautiful soil starts to grow so the the sprouts come back to life
• 40:03
  and then i like sometimes uh people get so grossed out i'll be at a show and i'll be showing oh
• 40:10
  oh look oh here's a here's a lentil sprout and then i'll just pull it out like shake it off and
• 40:16
  pop it in it's like getting my peck of dirt at the same time it almost seems like i tried
• 40:22
  sprouting once oh yeah it didn't work out so well for me yeah they kind of got moldy and didn't work
• 40:28
  out for i think it's too humid in florida like outside and inside i i don't remember what the
• 40:34
  problem was and then i i tried them in a mason jar once and that didn't work either
• 40:42
  well sprouting is very it's really wonderful um sprouts
• 40:45
  again back to kind of the issue of non-food like shortage sprouts are just seeds or beans
• 40:58
  germinated either hydroponically or in soil i use a hydroponic system with water
• 41:04
  and they germinate in a day or two so it's really fast and it's really something that i'm sorry that
• 41:10
  you had trouble, I would say try again. I'm sure it was me. I would love to try it again.
• 41:16
  Now that we have an expert here, that probably might help a little bit more.
• 41:21
  Yeah, I would say try again because sometimes what happens if you're using a jar,
• 41:27
  you know, the seeds are so small. So you put the seeds in, you're going, oh, that's not very many
• 41:30
  seeds. So you might toss some more seeds in. And then when the seeds start to grow,
• 41:35
  there's not enough room. So the ones on the center might start rotting because there's not
• 41:40
  of oxygen getting in there or the opposite there's too much water um because you need to drain it off
• 41:46
  and sometimes there's a little lip in the jar and the water sits there and that's where the bacteria
• 41:51
  grows so i see possibly i don't i don't know what what you were doing but that's um i would say start
• 41:57
  again because sprouts are incredible the system that i have it's like um uh food grade plastic
• 42:05
  like a little dome, stainless steel mesh. And I met the gentleman that designed that in 2002
• 42:13
  at my very first event exhibiting the worms. It was a garden event. And that thing, it looks like
• 42:19
  a spaceship. It was flying off the shelf. And so when there was a break in the audience, I went to
• 42:23
  this man and I said, what is that thing? And why are people buying that and not my worms?
• 42:28
  so he was uh he's 97 this year he was 72 professional ballroom dancer so tall lean
• 42:37
  body white crisp shirt black vest a gentleman and so he told me all about sprouts and okay so I was
• 42:45
  like wow 72 still working I came from an employee background I didn't know anyone that still worked
• 42:50
  at 72. So I was impressed with that. And having been a vendor, I know how hard it is setting up
• 42:58
  and stuff. I'm like, wow, look at that guy, 72. Just wow, look at him go. It's 10 years. So he
• 43:04
  told me all about sprouts. I said, okay, I'm in. So he said, if you're going to do this, start your
• 43:08
  day. It's mung beans that we're eating, which are the bean sprouts from Chinese food. So those are
• 43:14
  the ones that I eat every day, 24 years. I don't go a day without sprouts. It really is my health
• 43:22
  plan. And so here's some of the things about sprouts. They're hydrating, alkalizing, regenerative,
• 43:30
  biogenic, and contain up to 100 times more digestive enzymes than raw vegetables. As soon
• 43:36
  as we cook them, no more enzymes. Still fiber, protein, minerals, like lots of goodness.
• 43:41
  um so i was like oh my gosh i'm gonna do this so so i started to do that and i would see tony at
• 43:48
  different events and people thought that i was a plant because whenever there was someone at his
• 43:52
  booth like oh you should buy one of those it's really great plant sprout thank you for laughing
• 43:57
  and in 2012 he said hey why don't you sell the sprouter and beans with your worm business oh my
• 44:06
  gosh why didn't i think of that that's a great idea it's got to be easier sell than worms but
• 44:11
  only marginally because because we're so gullible in like it's got to be 20 years ago now there was
• 44:20
  an article on the front page of the toronto star largest paper in canada that said sprouts are toxic
• 44:26
  oh geez uh-oh so i see people at these shows and they're like oh i heard sprouts are toxic i hold
• 44:34
  up my bag of seeds and I'm like, if sprouts are toxic, we're doomed. Food comes from here,
• 44:39
  except the animals. But the, you know, the plant all comes from seeds. So if we're,
• 44:43
  and they start in sprout form. So the sprout goes to food. So if sprouts are toxic,
• 44:48
  all our food is toxic, which our manufactured stuff probably is.
• 44:53
  Most likely. Who funded that article would be my question.
• 44:57
  Right. But what they were talking about, see, I think the problem with us is that we're
• 45:03
  lazy people we don't read the whole thing we just like read the headline we go oh my gosh what
• 45:08
  i'm never eating sprouts again we so what they were talking about is the bags of sprouted
• 45:14
  mung beans like bean sprouts that come from china already sprouted yeah sure they're toxic they're
• 45:20
  sprayed with something they're they be like it takes a day or two to grow how like it took them
• 45:26
  three weeks to get from china yeah exactly how are you getting a sprout into a bag and staying
• 45:33
  moderately, reasonably fresh through its multi-week journey. You can't, right? I mean,
• 45:41
  they go from good to not so good pretty quickly. Pretty quickly, yeah. And even if we buy them
• 45:49
  sprouted at the store, not the ones from China, even from a local supplier, if they grow in a day
• 45:55
  or two, then it takes a day or two to get to the store. Once you buy them, you get them home,
• 46:00
  your alfalfa sprouts or your broccoli sprouts, they might be a little bit slimy or they might
• 46:06
  smell a little bit funky. And if they do, that's the bad bacteria you want to get rid of those.
• 46:12
  Yep. Yep. Yeah. Right. Because we're sprouting for our health.
• 46:16
  Yeah, exactly. And this just goes back to something we've said multiple times, right?
• 46:22
  The closer you can get to your food source, the better you're going to be, period. And that
• 46:26
  doesn't mean like next to the frito-lays plantation plant plantation but yeah and so
• 46:36
  you know sprouting something like like you know was mentioned previously you can do on your
• 46:41
  countertop in a mason jar right so you don't this isn't like you know crazy involved stuff
• 46:49
  a little water, some seeds, a couple of days. Yeah. And the seeds, you know, if you buy,
• 46:56
  or I would suggest buying organic seeds, the price in seed form to conventional,
• 47:03
  it's nominal. It's like pennies. Yeah. We don't have pennies anymore, but if we did.
• 47:08
  Especially if you buy them in bulk, right? That's another thing, right? If you're buying packets of
• 47:12
  seeds, they're very expensive or they can be, not always, but mostly they are. But if you buy,
• 47:18
  you know a thousand seeds all of a sudden you'll notice that you're you're getting them for far
• 47:24
  less money and i would agree organic uh and definitely non-gmo that's my take on that
• 47:31
  please don't eat that garbage well last year we let our broccoli plants after we harvested
• 47:36
  and we just let them go when they uh bolted and we got a ton of seeds off of them so that's that's
• 47:41
  what i think i tried to use so i'm going to try it again and hopefully i'll get better results
• 47:46
  yeah i would uh i would get sprouting seeds um okay they're different then well you may have
• 47:53
  more success if you're using them for sprouting okay yeah yeah um mung bean being one of the most
• 48:01
  common and just super easy to do right and super cheap super cheap seeds right yeah so there's no
• 48:09
  So, you know, I would do, before 2020, I was doing between 100 and 200 events a year.
• 48:16
  I was like a hamster.
• 48:18
  Oh, I got to be there.
• 48:18
  I got to be there.
• 48:19
  I really thought I had to be everywhere.
• 48:21
  And so I was.
• 48:22
  And luckily, I have lots of energy.
• 48:26
  Actually, my favorite part of those shows was the barter at the end of the show.
• 48:30
  When everyone's folding up and it's like, oh, you don't want to take that home?
• 48:33
  You want to trade?
• 48:33
  Let's trade.
• 48:35
  Nice.
• 48:35
  That is awesome.
• 48:36
  That'd be my favorite part, too.
• 48:37
  Hotel the government.
• 48:37
  I lost my train. I was going to say something, but oh, well, it's gone.
• 48:45
  Left my head.
• 48:47
  So we've kind of talked a little bit about two of your things that you founded.
• 48:53
  What is Kathy's Laughter Club?
• 48:56
  Ah, thank you. Yes, my favorite thing.
• 48:59
  It's my favorite thing now because we have a global mental health tsunami.
• 49:03
  I believe I have world hunger and world peace solved with my three offerings.
• 49:07
  Awesome.
• 49:09
  No pressure.
• 49:10
  It's okay.
• 49:11
  What else can I take on?
• 49:13
  And I don't say that like, you know, with a big ego.
• 49:17
  Just saying if everybody had worms to manage their scraps and grow a little bit of food,
• 49:22
  everybody sprouted so they got nutrient-rich food, and then laughing for the health of it.
• 49:28
  When we're laughing, ever heard the expression laughter is the best medicine?
• 49:32
  Absolutely.
• 49:33
  Yes.
• 49:34
  Right.
• 49:34
  So laughter, it's scientifically proven.
• 49:36
  So for people that need the proof, the proof is in the pudding, but there's no pudding.
• 49:43
  It's scientifically proven.
• 49:45
  And then my next question is, have you had your daily dose?
• 49:49
  Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins.
• 49:52
  When we're laughing, we're secreting all the happy hormones versus cortisol, adrenaline, epinephrine, the stress chemicals.
• 50:01
  And in today's world, we're living in this stress pool.
• 50:05
  We're swimming around in stress.
• 50:07
  We're like, oh, I'm so busy.
• 50:09
  Oh, I didn't sleep last night.
• 50:10
  Oh, oh, you know, running here and there.
• 50:13
  It's like, well, we're the one that puts all this pressure on ourselves, I believe.
• 50:18
  I mean, I know there's societal pressures, but we can only control us.
• 50:22
  I believe you're absolutely right.
• 50:24
  You know, and so people will say to me, so it's laughter yoga that I'm talking about.
• 50:30
  Laughter yoga was started.
• 50:32
  we just celebrated our 31st anniversary, started in 1995 by a medical doctor. And his goal is
• 50:39
  world peace, a medical doctor in India. His goal is world peace. There are clubs in over 120
• 50:44
  countries. And I believe it started in 1995. So we could have enough people trained around the world
• 50:53
  so we could bring this globally when everyone was locked in their house. Even before 2020,
• 50:59
  Dr. Kateria believed that it needed to be done in person. Like we all thought we needed to do
• 51:04
  everything in person, but we know now we can do a lot of stuff online and it translates.
• 51:11
  The energy goes through the screen. And so laughter yoga is not doing yoga and laughing.
• 51:19
  It's not jokes or comedy because jokes are cultural, right? Two people going somewhere.
• 51:25
  It's probably about those two. It's not funny for them. So it's just laughing as a cardiovascular workout, laughing for the health of it. And although the happy hormones and all the connection, all the things are important, I think the most important piece for laughter is the oxygen.
• 51:43
  When we're stressed, blood lymph oxygen leaves our frontal lobe and goes into our muscles so we can escape the situation, even if we're escaping from our mind.
• 51:54
  And so when we're laughing, oh, and our brain requires 25% more oxygen than the rest of our body as an operating principle.
• 52:03
  So when we're laughing...
• 52:04
  we're exhaling. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. We can't keep on ha ha ha ha ha-ing without going,
• 52:10
  taking a nice deep breath in so we can continue laughing at whatever we're laughing at.
• 52:17
  Although there are breathing exercises as two will say, okay, breathe in, hold it, smiling,
• 52:23
  whatever, and then exhale. We really don't need to do that because we're already doing the deep
• 52:29
  breathing when we're laughing because we got to go. And our diaphragm is attached to all of our
• 52:34
  organs. So when we are deep breathing and laughing, it's like internal jogging, our diaphragms moving
• 52:41
  all of our organs. It's just this potent medicine that we've forgotten about.
• 52:49
  So it's kind of an extension on the concept of breath work, essentially.
• 52:55
  It is. It is. Yes.
• 52:56
  That's pretty awesome. So I guess that for a new person, that must feel a little awkward.
• 53:05
  Oh, awkward. So weird. Oh, yes, indeed. It's very awkward. That's why, you know, I say to people,
• 53:12
  if it's your first time, plan to come twice, because the first time could be weird,
• 53:18
  especially in person, especially for the logical people. So there are little games to inspire the
• 53:22
  laughter. And there's clapping. So we're clapping palm to palm. And the rhythm is one, two, one,
• 53:28
  two, three. The words are ho, ho, ha, ha, ha. And when I came to laughter yoga, thank you.
• 53:34
  When I came to laughter yoga, I was like, oh, what is this? This is so weird.
• 53:39
  And now that I'm trained and I've been in it for so many years, I realized this is priming.
• 53:46
  This helps people that are logical, that are in their head, like, oh, you want me to laugh? What?
• 53:50
  there's no joke what is happening the body doesn't know the difference between real and simulated
• 53:55
  laughter our brain does the ego does like hey what's happening you you look ridiculous stop that
• 54:01
  because the brain's role is to keep us safe and conserve energy it knows what to do like that's
• 54:06
  why when you have those family functions and your brother's your sibling says something and you're
• 54:11
  like back in the thing again the brain's like oh i know what to do here so with laughter we can kind
• 54:17
  to bypass that we can start laughing ha ha ha even if it's simulated or fake ha ha ha and because
• 54:24
  we're we're smiling we're making that happy sound we start secreting those happy chemicals
• 54:29
  so we're bypassing our brain like i don't know what's happening but i'm making that happy sound
• 54:34
  so pew pew pew we start secreting those hormones and then we laugh some more ha ha ha pew pew pew
• 54:41
  we're literally in charge of our own pharma
• 54:48
  we can secrete the stress hormones or the happy hormones
• 54:53
  it's up to us that is pretty amazing
• 54:56
  I will admit though I'm one of those people if I came into a room of people like that
• 55:02
  I'd be like this is very awkward uncomfortable
• 55:05
  and I'm not sure I like it
• 55:07
  thank you i i appreciate that havoc i really appreciate that because that's that's kind of
• 55:15
  our society if we see somebody sad or somebody angry that's that's okay we see that all the time
• 55:21
  people shouting or people piping off if we see people laughing you know here's an example i live
• 55:28
  in a small town and i ride my bike i know we can't multitask but i combine my bike riding with my
• 55:33
  laughter yoga probably part of my branding I think I'll wear my shirt next time well I always
• 55:38
  have my shirt on really multitasking I'm a show or two and one day there was a man with his
• 55:48
  granddaughter standing on a bridge and I talked to everybody so I get off my bike I start approaching
• 55:53
  and I'm also an empath so as I was approaching I could feel that he was not happy that I was
• 55:57
  approaching. So I bid them a nice day. I got back on my bike and continued riding. A couple days
• 56:04
  later, I was standing on the bridge. And that man came along, he didn't have his granddaughter this
• 56:09
  time. And we started to talk. And he said, you know, when people see people laughing by themselves,
• 56:15
  they think there's something wrong with them. And I started laughing. And then we continued talking,
• 56:24
  I get on my bike, ride home.
• 56:27
  It wasn't until I walked into the living room that I, oh, my gosh, he was talking about me.
• 56:35
  Right?
• 56:37
  I mean, I think I am a little cuckoo, right?
• 56:39
  I have worms.
• 56:40
  I have worms, and I've got all these cuckoo things.
• 56:43
  I'm outside of society, for sure, by choice.
• 56:50
  And it's a magic life.
• 56:52
  I've created this incredible life not paying attention to what society wants me to do.
• 57:00
  And were people always supportive?
• 57:02
  No.
• 57:02
  Family was the worst.
• 57:04
  They're like, oh, because they want to keep you safe, right?
• 57:07
  They want you to be successful and have money and all the things.
• 57:12
  So they're like, what?
• 57:13
  You're going to say, no.
• 57:15
  No, why don't you just do what you know?
• 57:18
  Yeah.
• 57:18
  you know so but now 20 years in they're like oh we knew you we knew you could do it
• 57:23
  no you didn't sure oh well i wish you supported me back then that would be nice to know
• 57:29
  yeah no and it is interesting right because that the story of the the man on the bridge
• 57:37
  is a huge one because if you think about it right and i i i suppose it would be
• 57:46
  I would imagine some of this is environmentally,
• 57:50
  you know, just socially and environmentally taught, right?
• 57:55
  Where you grew up how you grew up you know what your influences were but yeah certainly walking down the street and you you know with with a friend or whatever and you see someone on the other side of the street standing there by themselves laughing yeah i i gonna avoid that this this doesn look right
• 58:14
  something we're all over there i don't think i want to go talk to them
• 58:18
  you know yeah but but honestly i mean it's it you know the the flip the flip side of that is
• 58:26
  i mean at least that person is is happy about something right um and hey at the end of the day
• 58:33
  you know not just chemically but you know for your own well-being mentally right
• 58:40
  better off laughing than than rage screaming at whatever is bothering you you know
• 58:47
  yeah you know i i would like to say about um how that how i came to laughter it was 2012
• 58:55
  and one more person said ew worms in the house about my worm business and i was like
• 59:03
  that day i'd heard it hundreds of times in the previous 10 years hundreds i i should have kept
• 59:09
  track and i wasn't paying attention you know they say to listen to what your clients want i wasn't
• 59:15
  I was like, no, no, no, you need this.
• 59:18
  People don't buy what they need.
• 59:20
  They buy what they want, and they definitely didn't want what I was flogging.
• 59:23
  And that day in 2012, I heard it.
• 59:26
  I felt it.
• 59:26
  I questioned everything.
• 59:27
  And I was about to doff my important mission, like, oh, maybe I should get a job.
• 59:31
  Oh, no, this has to work.
• 59:33
  Don't tell me what to do.
• 59:36
  I'd be a horrible employee.
• 59:38
  Right.
• 59:40
  This has to work.
• 59:41
  And the very next day, I was introduced to laughter yoga.
• 59:44
  I was at a business meeting and the speaker did a five-minute introduction.
• 59:49
  I don't do yoga, by the way.
• 59:50
  I know it's a great thing.
• 59:51
  It's just not my modality.
• 59:53
  I jumped right to the fun yoga, like laughing.
• 59:55
  What?
• 59:56
  So fun.
• 59:56
  And then that same week, 2012, I was at a networking event, hundreds of people.
• 1:00:02
  The very first woman I met was a laughter yoga teacher.
• 1:00:06
  And I said to her, oh, laughter yoga is mainstream, right?
• 1:00:10
  Like twice in one week.
• 1:00:11
  Come on, I'm the center of the universe.
• 1:00:12
  of course it's mainstream. And she was like, no, it isn't. I think she got offended. And we
• 1:00:18
  trooped around that night. Everybody we met and said, have you heard of laughter yoga? Have you?
• 1:00:22
  Have you? Have you? Nevermind my worms that I was trying to flog. And her club happened to be
• 1:00:29
  five minute walk from where my mother-in-law lived in Toronto. Like Toronto is a massive city.
• 1:00:34
  And her club was five minutes from my mother-in-law. And I was like, so fun. I phoned up
• 1:00:40
  my mother-in-law and I said, hey, you want to go to laughter yoga? And she said, what's that? And I
• 1:00:43
  said, I don't know, but I don't want to go alone. And it became our date night. And we would go out
• 1:00:50
  for dinner. She would say, we better not have garlic. And I'm like, no, no, as long as we both
• 1:00:53
  have it. I'm not like her. And so, yeah, so it was so fun. So we would go to laughter yoga and
• 1:01:03
  it was a monthly club. So not often enough to get the benefits, but it was fun. We loved it.
• 1:01:10
  And then after about three or four months, she closed her club because there wasn't enough attendance.
• 1:01:16
  And her club was at a very busy intersection, Condoville, like 20,000 people must live at that corner.
• 1:01:24
  And I was like, oh, they just don't know.
• 1:01:27
  We just need 10 people.
• 1:01:29
  So I got trained as a leader.
• 1:01:31
  And I love that so much.
• 1:01:32
  I got trained as a teacher.
• 1:01:34
  So I teach leaders now.
• 1:01:35
  and I was appointed laughter ambassador in 2017 by Dr. Kateria.
• 1:01:41
  And I wear that moniker really proudly.
• 1:01:46
  And I think before 2012 when I was introduced,
• 1:01:51
  when somebody said, ooh, worms in the house,
• 1:01:54
  on a certain level I took it personal, like, ooh, something about me.
• 1:01:59
  Laughter gave me permission to realize, ah, that's not my stuff.
• 1:02:05
  They're just not ready yet. They're not my market. They're not ready. That's okay. It's not me. It's the worms. They're not happy with the idea of the worms. And it changed everything for me. And then my husband, I laugh and I say he was laughter hesitant for about 10 years. So I got introduced in 2012. I know it sounds so funny.
• 1:02:27
  before 2020 i was doing skype laughter with um laughter professionals 20 minutes of laughter
• 1:02:33
  no talking we just log in it was um audio not video and i would be doing my emails laughing
• 1:02:40
  just practicing different laughs so we're all just practicing our craft my husband would leave
• 1:02:45
  the room i'm like why is he leaving like laughter's the best medicine like what's wrong with him
• 1:02:49
  and then in 2022 we're walking in the forest and i said oh i have a training next week and
• 1:02:56
  I only have one student and they're paid. So I guess we're going ahead.
• 1:03:02
  And he said, maybe I'll take the training.
• 1:03:05
  There was never any talk of him taking the training. I was like, what?
• 1:03:10
  So it took 10 years for the laughter to get into his DNA. And then I don't know.
• 1:03:15
  That's just, you know, he, he has a different story, but I think my story is better.
• 1:03:20
  and now we co-lead we co-lead laughter club together and it's changed it's changed us as
• 1:03:28
  a couple we've been together for like together 40 years married 38 this year um someone should get a
• 1:03:35
  prize um that's awesome that's a wonderful wonderful thing it's so beautiful and like it's
• 1:03:42
  made us even closer like we're close already we're kind of connected at the hip it's fine
• 1:03:46
  It's just made us really more resilient, I would say.
• 1:03:51
  And if we do get into a skirmish it very rare but if we do we might get into argument gibberish laughter So if we start to escalate where you just in emotion where you operating from your reptile brain okay no point in having an argument because no one saying anything valuable
• 1:04:08
  And you can't take it back, folks.
• 1:04:11
  So then we'll do argument laughter.
• 1:04:12
  One hand on your hip, one hand wagging.
• 1:04:14
  Right? And then you lepers start laughing.
• 1:04:23
  Okay, now let's have an adult conversation.
• 1:04:25
  What do we need to talk about?
• 1:04:28
  Well, that's a good way to disarm the anger or fear
• 1:04:34
  or whatever else is going on, I think.
• 1:04:37
  Yeah, I'd like the world leaders to have a gibberish argument.
• 1:04:40
  that would be pretty awesome i think yeah yeah let's see if we can arrange that i think that
• 1:04:48
  would be good televised televised yes because we all need to see something that silly i think
• 1:04:56
  right yeah so i absolutely understand your idea your your thoughts that it would be really awkward
• 1:05:02
  um i did i i did a um uh laughter gig for a probus club probus i don't know if it's canadian
• 1:05:10
  but it's professional business people that are retired.
• 1:05:13
  So they don't want you to sell them anything.
• 1:05:15
  They just want to be educated or entertained.
• 1:05:18
  So I was hired to do a laughter gig.
• 1:05:22
  So I did some talking about it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 1:05:25
  And then I said, okay, everyone stand up.
• 1:05:26
  We're going to do some laughter yoga.
• 1:05:28
  At the end, a woman came up to me.
• 1:05:29
  There was 300 people in the audience.
• 1:05:31
  So I couldn't see everybody.
• 1:05:33
  Like I didn't notice this person, but she came up to me and she said,
• 1:05:36
  that was so great.
• 1:05:37
  She said, my husband hates interactive stuff.
• 1:05:40
  But he didn't know who the speaker was, so he came.
• 1:05:42
  And when he said, everybody stand up, he was glaring at me.
• 1:05:46
  And he had his hands, arms crossed, and he didn't play at all.
• 1:05:51
  And that's hilarious because laughter is contagious.
• 1:05:54
  When we hear laughter, we're primed to it.
• 1:05:57
  We want to laugh.
• 1:05:58
  But it takes a lot of energy to not even smile.
• 1:06:01
  If you don't even crack a smile, wow, that's a pretty strong character.
• 1:06:07
  Oh, yeah.
• 1:06:09
  Very much so.
• 1:06:10
  Just go along with it.
• 1:06:11
  Just try it.
• 1:06:13
  And that's what we say as laughter.
• 1:06:16
  That's what I say as a laughter yoga teacher.
• 1:06:18
  When I do a club or I'm hired to go somewhere,
• 1:06:23
  first thing I say is allow yourself permission.
• 1:06:27
  Get out of your head and into your body.
• 1:06:30
  If you're thinking this is weird, you're in your head.
• 1:06:33
  Get in your body and feel it because your body is going to have a party.
• 1:06:37
  It's going to be fully oxygenated, all the love drugs careening.
• 1:06:41
  And here's a wonderful fact, fun fact about laughter or oxygen.
• 1:06:47
  Cancer cannot survive in an oxygen-rich body.
• 1:06:51
  Dr. Otto Warburg won a Nobel Peace Prize for this information way back when.
• 1:06:55
  I don't know what year it was.
• 1:06:57
  I will have that information for the next time.
• 1:07:00
  Awesome.
• 1:07:02
  Well, very good.
• 1:07:03
  this is I think probably a good place to start wrapping up um it's been a really wonderful
• 1:07:09
  conversation and we like to ask our guests one thing this our only scripted question and we
• 1:07:16
  usually we always prep our guests and let them know it's coming but throughout our lives there's
• 1:07:21
  an individual could be a historical figure an author sixth grade science teacher mom whoever it
• 1:07:29
  who had a profound impact on our lives.
• 1:07:33
  And we'd like to give our guest a chance to shout out that person.
• 1:07:38
  Yeah, I would say I would love to give a shout out to Mary Applehoff.
• 1:07:44
  She was a microbiologist in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
• 1:07:49
  She wrote a book called Worms Eat My Garbage.
• 1:07:53
  And she was like not my mentor because I only spoke to her on the phone,
• 1:07:57
  But because of her wonderful work, she wrote that book in the 80s.
• 1:08:02
  And she was shouting from the rooftops in the 70s, hey, everybody, you can have worms in your kitchen to manage your fruit scraps.
• 1:08:09
  I felt like an alien in 2002 telling people that could have worms inside.
• 1:08:14
  So I can only imagine how Mary, like she was a microbiologist, so she might not have cared what other people were thinking or whatever.
• 1:08:23
  But, you know, yeah, because of Mary, I was able to stay in what I was doing.
• 1:08:31
  And I looked to her for not advice, but just, you know, thinking, man, Mary was doing this in the 70s and 80s.
• 1:08:41
  So which gave me 20 years.
• 1:08:43
  She was a pioneer 20 years before I even started.
• 1:08:47
  Wow.
• 1:08:48
  And she passed in 05.
• 1:08:49
  and and you know just a quick story about mary in 2005 i mentioned going to to michigan because of
• 1:08:56
  an article at biocycle when i when i went there we stopped in flint i don't know why we stopped in
• 1:09:03
  flint michigan um where michael moore's from and i had i asked a couple of people if they'd heard
• 1:09:10
  of mary alpahoff and she and they hadn't and i was like man when you die you're dead unless someone
• 1:09:14
  keeps you alive and then i realized michael moore was from flint michigan so i i i i set about to
• 1:09:22
  i had this great idea that michigan could be the worm capital of the world with all those empty gm
• 1:09:29
  buildings all those unemployed people and michigan became the trash capital um they they have the
• 1:09:36
  lowest tipping fees and the tipping fees at landfill so canada exports their garbage to
• 1:09:44
  michigan the surrounding states send their garbage to michigan so i was like imagine if michigan used those buildings use the trash that they getting anyway as a resource wouldn that be grand And I tried to get in touch with Michael Moore He says he answers
• 1:10:01
  all his emails. He didn't. His agent wanted to get the letter to him. But I was at an environmental
• 1:10:07
  film festival and I used to carry around the letter that I had a freelance writer interview
• 1:10:14
  me and she wrote this letter in there they were my words but in her words if that makes sense
• 1:10:19
  and I would carry around this letter because of the six degrees of separation I was like
• 1:10:23
  Michael Moore comes to to TIFF every year the Toronto Film Festival okay so he dated someone
• 1:10:30
  he someone sued him or someone knows him and I'm gonna find someone that knows him and get this
• 1:10:35
  letter to him so I was at this film festival and I said to the organizer of the festival oh you know
• 1:10:41
  I'm trying to get Michael Moore.
• 1:10:43
  Here's a letter that I wrote to Michael Moore.
• 1:10:45
  And he read the letter.
• 1:10:47
  He called over his partner.
• 1:10:48
  He's like, Dave, Dave.
• 1:10:49
  And he's like, Dave, we should do this movie.
• 1:10:52
  And then he looked at me.
• 1:10:53
  He's like, oh, maybe you want Michael Moore to do it.
• 1:10:55
  I'm like, ah, he can do the second one.
• 1:11:01
  It's called Squirm.
• 1:11:02
  I was like, he could do Squirm too.
• 1:11:04
  That's funny.
• 1:11:06
  So I do have a documentary.
• 1:11:07
  It's Canadian documentary.
• 1:11:08
  It wasn't exactly what I thought it was going to be.
• 1:11:11
  but a documentary before everyone was doing videos.
• 1:11:15
  So how beautiful.
• 1:11:16
  That is awesome.
• 1:11:18
  Where can we watch that?
• 1:11:20
  It's on YouTube.
• 1:11:22
  It's called Squirm, or it's on my website as well.
• 1:11:24
  It might be easier to find it because Squirm, you find the horror movie.
• 1:11:28
  Yeah.
• 1:11:29
  Okay.
• 1:11:30
  I'll definitely watch it for sure.
• 1:11:32
  Yeah, so where can people find your work?
• 1:11:34
  Where can they find what you've got going on?
• 1:11:41
  laughter. Yeah, wonderful. So I have three websites.
• 1:11:46
  Kathy'sComposters.com is worms. Kathy'sSprouters.com
• 1:11:50
  is sprouts. And Kathy'sClub.com
• 1:11:54
  is laughter. And I was going to have Kathy's Laughter Club,
• 1:11:58
  but when you put S in front of laughter, you get
• 1:12:02
  slaughter. It's a different club.
• 1:12:07
  So it's Kathy's Club.
• 1:12:08
  And if I may, Havoc and Alex, if I may invite you and your listeners to my free online laughter club, I would love it.
• 1:12:18
  May I?
• 1:12:20
  Yes.
• 1:12:21
  Absolutely.
• 1:12:21
  Too late.
• 1:12:22
  I'll give it a shot.
• 1:12:24
  Why not?
• 1:12:25
  It will be awkward and it will be weird, but I will do it.
• 1:12:29
  Okay.
• 1:12:29
  Yeah.
• 1:12:30
  It's Tuesday mornings, 930 a.m. Eastern, 30 minutes of super fun self-care.
• 1:12:34
  I incorporate tapping, brain gym, Qigong, just to help people get out of stress and into joy.
• 1:12:41
  And in June, we are celebrating six years of our global giggle gang.
• 1:12:46
  Awesome.
• 1:12:47
  I will have to, I still work for the man.
• 1:12:51
  So I will have to take a little bit of time off and mark myself out.
• 1:12:55
  But I will find time to do that and see what it's all about.
• 1:12:58
  So Tuesdays at 9.30 a.m. Eastern Time?
• 1:13:01
  Yes.
• 1:13:02
  Okay.
• 1:13:04
  Perfect.
• 1:13:04
  All right. Well, thank you very much for giving us a little bit of your time today. We really appreciate it. And it's been a wonderful, wonderful episode. Anything you wanted to follow up on, Alex?
• 1:13:22
  I got a very good education and I really, really enjoyed this episode.
• 1:13:28
  Me too.
• 1:13:29
  And I wanted to say space tomatoes.
• 1:13:31
  You know, I end my presentations with that I saw the Canadian astronaut, Dr. Robert Thurspeak, and he spoke about the Mars exploration.
• 1:13:42
  He said a trip to Mars, three years.
• 1:13:45
  And I would say, wow, people in the audience were like, oh, my gosh, how do you not have enough air to breathe or water to drink?
• 1:13:51
  He said, water and air we have covered.
• 1:13:53
  It's food.
• 1:13:54
  How do we grow enough food?
• 1:13:55
  How do we bring enough food to feed our crew for a return trip?
• 1:13:58
  So I say, I used to add my presentation with, it's not rocket science, it's earth science.
• 1:14:04
  And now it's rocket science too.
• 1:14:07
  And so they are growing space tomatoes.
• 1:14:09
  Oh yeah.
• 1:14:10
  Nice.
• 1:14:10
  Absolutely.
• 1:14:11
  I actually did study up on some of that.
• 1:14:14
  And I thought it's a really interesting thing.
• 1:14:17
  Because without gravity, so much changes, right?
• 1:14:21
  I mean, so much changes.
• 1:14:24
  So yeah, awesome.
• 1:14:25
  Awesome.
• 1:14:26
  All right.
• 1:14:27
  Well, thank you again for coming on.
• 1:14:29
  We really appreciate your time.
• 1:14:31
  And thank you for giving us a little bit of your time again.
• 1:14:34
  You know where to find us.
• 1:14:36
  We're everywhere.
• 1:14:37
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• 1:14:40
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• 1:14:49
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• 1:14:56
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• 1:15:01
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• 1:15:06
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• 1:15:11
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• 1:15:20
  you are, whenever you're watching this, have an amazing day.
• 1:15:26
  See you, everybody.