Dirty Jobs (2005) s01e02 Episode Script

Worm Dung Farmer

1 Rowe: Coming up on "dirty jobs" See, these are just like razor blades.
It's a wet and wild free-for-all If they bite you, that's how you catch one.
When I go fishing with some good, old boys and end up as the bait.
I go underground with a man who sucks sewage for a living Jesus! Oh, god! And get an up-close look at things better left unseen.
I'm going to be real good for the rest of my life because I don't want to come here when I die.
I also visit a Florida worm ranch where I make some new friends Two million of them to be exact They're having sex, aren't they? And Bury them under 12 tons of manure.
Oh, dude! Come on, man, it's poop! They're grimy, gritty This turd's for you.
Gooey Geez, it's like a giant hunk of snot.
And gross.
They're dirty jobs.
It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it oh uh-uh-oh it's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it oh-uh-oh eufaula, Oklahoma, is the unofficial capital of catfish noodling A little-known sport that's illegal in most states.
It's dangerous, and it's definitely dirty.
So we're here at the lake now, eufaula lake, in the town of eufaula.
We're about 80 miles due east of shawnee, and Jerry and his friend, Don, here, uh, well, we're ready to go catfishing, but there are no rods and reels here, Jerry.
Uh, no, actually, in noodling, it's a hands-fishing-only law.
You don't use any hooks, gaffs, or Spears.
It's just hand-fishing only, but you can use sticks and stuff to run them out to you.
Now catfish get pretty big, right? Yeah.
How big? Oh, I'd say 100-plus.
We're not going to see anything that big today, are we? If we get one that weighs 30 to 50, we're probably lucky.
This has got to be very strange for a lot of people who have never seen this before.
You're talking about pulling a 40-, 50-, 60-pound fish out of the water with a piece of pvc pipe and your bare hands.
You don't have to use a piece of pvc pipe, just anything.
A lot of people don't even use a stick.
They'll just stick their arm off in a hole, and hopefully they can reach and he'll bite him.
Anything that gets close inside their hole, they're going to immediately attack it.
You can't be telling me the only thing in here is catfish? Oh, no, there's crappie, catfish, bass, carp Copperheads.
There's copperheads all around the lake.
Snapping turtles, maybe? Yeah, a lot of snapping turtles.
All right, we'll get to that later.
I want to see what you guys do with these Poles now.
See if we can flush one of these things out of here.
That was quite an entrance, Don.
Well, I don't want to hit no rocks.
Don's like a fish, isn't he? Yeah, he is.
He'll stay under longer than you can imagine.
A big fish.
Big, giant fish, like a manatee.
What do you see down there, Don, anything? It's kind of fuzzy.
Do you open your eyes in this, guys? Yeah.
Rowe: Unlike fly fishing, noodling doesn't require a lot of technique.
Basically you stick your hand in a hole and see if something bites it.
If it's a catfish, well, congratulations, you've successfully noodled.
Empty hole? Yep, it's a nice one, though.
There could be an air pocket and if there's an air pocket, there could be a snake or a turtle in it, or a beaver, yeah.
Muskrat.
And if you tick him off enough He might come out and say, "hi.
" Yeah, I've had little muskrats eat me alive.
They're the worst.
Really? Oh, yeah, they're just like a little chihuahua with teeth coming at you just nip, nip, nip, nip, nip.
Now why wouldn't he run from you, once you Well, sometimes they will.
They'll try to blow out of a hole.
I've been hit.
I've had my nose bloodied, lip busted.
They'll run right in the middle of your chest.
You get one that weighs 50, 60 pounds and hits you in the middle of your chest, it'll knock the air out of you.
Yeah, it's dog-eat-dog world in the water.
Rowe: After nearly an hour of watching Jerry and Don splash around in the lake, I began to suspect that noodling was nothing more than an elaborate aquatic snipe hunt.
What do you think? I think we need to go to the big lake.
Bigger lake, bigger fish.
Okay, we tried this here.
They're not in here.
So we're going to try and improve our odds a little bit in the bigger portion of the lake aboard the "party craft" here, right, guys? Is that the name of the boat or the name of the boat? It's the maker of the boat.
Oh, party craft.
With a name like that, we're bound to have fun.
Don, that's a hell of a tattoo.
It kind of tells a story.
Yeah, I got a good flathead on it with an arm hanging out.
You can see his elbow and see the bone with the blood and the leaders hanging out and right below it says, "bite me.
" It's a short sentiment, but it really does It says many words for just two little words.
Two little words that say so much.
Yeah, so if I ever, the arm hanging off If I ever do lose an arm, I hope it's my left one and not my right one.
Well, I'll say a little prayer for you.
Well, I hope so.
Please, lord, let him lose his left and not his right.
[ Laughter .]
So what are we going to do? Where are we going to go? Well, we're going to go right out here, where old 69 highway has sunk in the water, where they abandoned it, and they built the new 69 highway.
We're going to noodle on a sunken highway? Underneath it.
That's got to be dangerous.
It's pretty dangerous.
It can be.
People get hurt? Well, they've drowned.
They've died.
In fact, right where we're going.
Yeah, if you don't take it to the edge, you're not going to catch a fish.
We're going to the edge, aren't we? Maybe a little past it.
[ Thunder rumbles .]
Well, it's started to rain out here on the lake, obviously, and it's blowing pretty good, too, about a 20-knot wind, but that hasn't stopped either Jerry, in the foreground, or Don, who's way the heck out there.
They're noodling under all this concrete, which was old highway 69, and they want me to come out and join them, which I just think is hysterical! Don and Jerry were determined not to let it rain on their parade.
They were going to get a catfish come hell or high water.
Oh, he got one! [ Laughs .]
Don just went underwater and picked out a fish.
Unbelievable.
If you can see what he's done to my thumb.
What did he do to your thumb? You'll see in a minute.
Oh, man, that's annoying.
Look at that.
Bad fish.
Bad fish.
Look at that.
Under sunken highway 69, Don and Jerry took it to the edge, but Don was determined to go past it.
Saved his life there.
Life saver.
Holy cow.
Look at that thing.
Good god! That was worth the wait, wasn't it? I don't know.
Geez, it's like a giant hunk of snot! How do you hang onto him? See those gills inside there? See, these are just like razor blades.
What? The Gill slits.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You want to feel down in there, you can reach down in there and you can feel how they feel.
Just like razor blades, and when you put your hands through there, they just cut you up just like that.
He's about, uh, I'm going to say 38.
Oh, no, he's No? Nope.
I'm telling you, this is at least 25 pounds.
Yeah, he'll go 25, won't he? I think he'll go about 28.
About 27 and a half.
Hey, I was about a half a pound off, right? Coming up next, it's my turn to get my feet wet Ease around.
When I go mano a mano with a surly Oklahoma flathead.
Look, there it is.
Yeah, I knew there'd be one there.
And later, I catch a ride with the honey wagon, but the load it's carrying is anything but sweet.
Rowe: After spending the morning learning the ropes from Don and Jerry, it was my turn to try my hand at the not so subtle art of catfish noodling.
There's nothing they can hurt you with.
Oh, I guess they could fin you from the back, but, I mean, you'd really have to be messing with them.
They'll run from you.
Well, that just scared the hell out of me.
Is that natural? I mean, I'm used to anything in the water and stuff like that here.
We're really in a safe area right here.
The worst things you'd have to worry about here is a turtle or a water snake.
Now you can get leeches out here.
Make sure, you know, it's not too bad to get 'em on your arms or your legs or your belly.
Just try not to get 'em anywhere else.
Yeah, there's some spots you really don't want a leech.
Try to keep your fingers together.
Then smoothly.
Don't reach in there like you're trying to fight.
Ease around.
So if I'm supposed to let them bite me, who's fishing who? If they bite you, that's their mistake.
That's how you catch 'em.
There's a major hole here.
How far in, how far in do I put my hand? As far as you can reach.
All the way to your shoulder if you can go that far.
And if you can't, then pull your arm out and put your leg in it.
Reach back with your leg.
Right there where you feel the front of it, see if it's kind of smooth or gravelly, where it's cleaned out.
Where it kind of goes down underneath it.
Yeah, like I said, just take your time at it.
Yeah.
Guys, how do I know if this is a turtle or a fish? Speak up.
Well, if he bites you and let's go, then it's a fish.
Ow! Jesus! I knew there'd be one.
I knew there'd be one there.
I knew it.
There was one there the other day, and I lost him.
Good for a first fish.
That's a good one.
Yeah! Ha-ha! Yeah! What's for dinner, baby? That's unusual, too, the first time.
Oh, yeah, and it's a flathead.
Yeah, most of the time you catch a blue.
That's a legal catch right there.
I guarantee you.
Gotta be 20 inches, and that's a 20-inch fish.
Yeah, he's pretty.
That's great for the first fish.
Oh, he's beautiful, look at him.
Look at that color in him.
Look how he's cut up.
Yeah, I know, rubbing on that thing.
You got him? I got him.
You did well.
You guys ready to have a fish fry? Kicked its ass.
That's right.
Rowe: Turns out for Don and Jerry, catching the fish is only half the fun.
We got 30, 25, and a 12? Next comes cleaning and cooking.
Okay, good.
Now what we're doing here, we're going to bleed him.
Rowe: Because the more blood that's left in the fish, the more it's going to taste like fish.
See how he's bleeding right there? Yeah.
Now just try to snap it sideways.
Snap it sideways? Yeah, just snap the bone.
Jerry: And, Don, I've got a really sharp knife here.
Okay.
There you go, like that.
There you go.
Just like that.
See the way the blood comes out of it? Yeah, as a matter of fact, hard to miss.
The skin is very tough.
You can almost upholster your Chevy with it.
Rowe: Well, I'll keep that in mind, Jerry.
That's a big idea.
Look at you.
Man, you got It's not about finesse, is it? Just broke its neck there, didn't you? Broke his neck.
Now I'm going to twist him and pull that out and there's the head.
All right, now just turn him over like this.
Take my fillet knife and I go down his backbone right here till I get through.
Rowe: There's a lot of knives and stuff flying around here.
Yeah, you gotta watch out because Don and I tend to get a little wild, don't we, Don? Yeah, sometimes.
Now I'm going to show you the fillet.
That's one fillet off of one side of the fish.
Man, that's handsome.
Can you imagine laying this on your grill and grilling that fillet? That's better than any prime rib you could ever have.
I think I got problems? Look at this fish.
One minute he's hanging out under a log, next minute Mr.
Wonderful comes along, hits him in the head, grabs him in the mouth, throws him in water, pulls his skin off.
Then I'm going to eat him.
Are you getting it all? Yeah, a little bit.
Give me, give me a hint.
Is there something else I can do, or am I just being a big baby about it? I'm just going to make you a little line I want you to stay on.
Right there, but don't get real deep and cut the guts.
Don't cut the guts.
Yeah, the bladder bag you saw awhile ago? It'll ruin the meat.
I don't want to eat it.
What could possibly come out of a bladder that's good? Now I'm scared to go too deep.
Don't want some gallbladder yellow crap squirting in my eye.
What now, boss? Straight down the middle? Take it right here.
See right there? Put your fingers apart like that.
Gotcha.
Okay.
There you go.
Hello, Mr.
Fish.
All right.
What's this little slice of heaven right here? That's that gallbladder.
All right, that's full of the yellow stuff and just bad, bad stuff.
Matter of fact, go ahead and get rid of it.
Do you want to take that with you or something for, like, a souvenir or something? Pass, no.
Reach up here, grab this, grab right here, and snap it.
You'll hear it pop.
You should hear it pop.
Okay, okay, hold it.
Go the other way with him now.
Okay.
There you go.
Break the fish's neck, Mike.
For god's sakes.
You want some help? No, no, it's kind of personal, Don.
If you can do it, you can go up from here this way, too.
Oh, yeah, sure.
If you're strong enough.
You know what? All day long with these insinuations.
I ain't heard his neck pop yet.
There it went.
That was my knee.
Oh.
Just a couple of jolly guys tearing the [bleep.]
out of some fish.
And just like that, we're all cleaned up.
Dinner's about to be served and, uh, go ahead, chef.
Tell me exactly how this works.
We got it filleted.
You're breading it up now it looks like.
I'm breading the fish.
That's vegetable oil and peanut oil mixed together.
You've been watching the food channel or something.
I don't watch the food channel.
I developed the food channel.
My parents owned a restaurant.
I've been cooking all my life, and I love to cook.
Love to eat.
So this is a classic Oklahoma catfish fry, or a catfish fish fry? Right.
Dip the fish.
I have two food groups here.
We have fish, and my beans are a food group all their own, so we have two food groups and no vegetables.
Nice.
I'll just reach right in.
Go right ahead.
Dig in.
Mmm mmm! He was worth every Every inch of hide I left.
Don, thanks for your expertise.
Jerry, your hospitality, it's been great.
I feel like I should make a toast or something.
My first noodle.
Cheers.
Rowe: Next on "dirty jobs" I descend into the bowels of a Wisconsin sewer system where I see, smell, and shovel things I wish I could forget.
This is it! This is the worst.
And later, it's yippie-kie-aye as I rustle up a herd of worms Today we've come to Madison, Wisconsin, where there are over 600,000 septic tanks.
That means every day over three million people are flushing their used food somewhere into their front lawn and that means the honey wagon is always busy.
And just for the record, that's not honey in there.
Say hi to les Swanson.
He's been driving the honey wagon now for how long, les? Twenty-six or seven years.
Good lord, man, that's a lot of honey.
Yes, it is.
Why do you do this? It's too hard to stop.
It's addictive? Yes, it is.
What's going to happen to me today? You're going to get a little taste, so to speak, of what it's like to be a septic-tank technician.
How big is the average septic tank? About a thousand gallons.
And how often are they emptied? The state requires a minimum of every three years.
Is it just toilet stuff or is it refuse? It's everything? Well, ideally, if you didn't eat it, you shouldn't flush it, but there's a lot of non-biodegradable materials that go in that makes our jobs less ideal.
You know what else I like, les? It's nice and warm today and humid.
It's a good day It enhances the aroma.
Of the honey.
Yes.
Okay, let's go be a couple of bees.
Okay.
It's a fairly simple procedure that takes a lot of hose and a strong stomach.
Oh, god! Les, that's not good.
This is a pretty one.
Pretty? Looks just the way it's supposed to.
Looks like there's good bacterial growth in there.
That's good growth? Smells like it's operating.
Oh, god.
How deep is that? About four feet deep.
Uh-huh, so we're going to literally pull how many gallons out of here? A thousand this is a thousand-gallon tank.
A thousand gallons of septic sludge pumped through two hundred feet of interconnected hose.
At first, this job didn't sound all that bad [ Engine turns over .]
but then I learned that there's more to pumping sewage than just pumping.
What the hell is this? It's a turd hurtler.
A turd hurtler?! We're hurtling turds.
Do you want me to demonstrate my technique? I'd like to see your technique with the turd hurtler.
You know you're doing it right when you feel that rocking sound.
Yeah, it's interesting the way the fluid just flies right out of the top there.
And this is just to what, keep the flow? Keep things agitated so you're doing a better job of cleaning.
There's a heavy layer of sludge on the bottom that you want to get suspended.
Yeah, gotta suspend the sludge.
It's hard to hold your breath and stir at the same time.
It sure is.
Stir it like coffee.
[ Grunts .]
A little piece of something just flew right by my ear.
And you have to remember to keep your mouth closed.
Yeah, I know.
[ Coughs .]
Try to keep the hose up to the top of the liquid level so that it's getting all of the floatable solids out of there.
That's what can get out and clog the drain field.
Oh, man, 'cause if we clog the drain field, then somebody would have to go in there and unclog it.
That's right.
Well, that's not going to happen.
Well, you won't have to go to the fitness center tonight.
No, I'll just have to go straight to the emergency room.
I think you're kind of a natural at this, actually.
Thanks.
Six years of college.
Yeah? It's all coming together for me.
I thought turd hurtling was bad enough, but then we got down to the soupy section.
Ahh! Oh, les, this is just terrible.
Gets a little funky there toward the bottom.
Well, it's a lot cleaner than it was, les, but I wouldn't want to eat off it.
I think you did a good job.
Thank you.
Now what? Next part is to inspect, if you want to hold the mirror there.
We're going to be looking at the other end of the tank, about eight feet away.
Mm-hmm.
Oh, yeah, I see a Piece of white pvc.
That's the outlet baffle.
Well, to be honest with you, it's kind of off-white.
Mm-hmm, and it's looking good, and we're just looking to make sure there aren't any big cracks or anything or any roots coming in.
I think the big cracks already did their work here.
This tank needs to get a locking device on it, something so the neighborhood kids don't come and pull the 100-pound cover off.
What's the matter with kids these days, les? When the neighborhood kids start playing in the septic tank, you know something's seriously gone wrong.
So that's that, les.
The honey is in the wagon.
Does it get any worse than this? Oh, let's try it.
We're going to chase some grease.
Okay, you drive, okay? I'll just ride along.
Little did I know that just a few miles down the road, I was in for a special treat The chefs at the local middle school that whipped up a little surprise for me, a school-lunch smorgasbord, nine months in the making.
So here we are at the sandhill school, and, uh, well, there can't be anything good in there.
Lots of used food.
Now what are we going to be collecting, exactly? This is a grease trap.
The grease trap is here to keep the grease out of the city sewer lines.
Right.
Oh, look at that.
That doesn't look like grease.
That looks like something worse.
There aren't any bathrooms that go into here, though.
It's just the kitchen.
Really, that's all kitchen? Oh, geez, are you sure that's not Look at that the cockroach.
He's a good size.
I'm not sure how we'd check for sure.
Oh, look at this.
This just gets better and better.
Basically I was in for more of the same.
Oh! Only this was going to be three times the fun.
Is it sucking it right now? This thing that's happening? Ugh! Oh, man, les, that's worse than the last one.
Is it? Oh, that's much worse.
That's as bad as anything I've ever smelled.
What with all of the pumping and hurtling, I was about ready to hurtle my lunch.
The only thing that got me through it was the knowledge that it couldn't last forever.
Geez! Oh, man, how can that smell ever come off of me? [ Coughing .]
Hey, you got your rhythm down.
I can feel it pumping there.
Yeah.
I was learning that working the honey wagon was a full-blown assault on the senses.
It looked bad.
It smelled worse.
And a rancid flavor hung in the air.
The whole experience left a bad taste in my mouth, literally.
[ Coughing .]
Why does this smell worse than the crap? I don't know.
Oh, god! We're through here.
Oh, we're through, yeah.
We're definitely through.
Coming up next, les and I gear up for one final stop and get an up-close look at things better left unseen.
Think Maui.
And later, there's more than magic in the air at a Florida worm poop ranch.
Oh, dude.
Rowe: I started off with a septic tank and graduated to a grease pit.
That's as bad as anything I've ever smelled.
And just when I thought it couldn't get worse, it did.
So the honey wagon has come to the pumping station.
And that's what we're sort of sitting on.
Now why do I have a bad feeling about this? Because you get to go in a hole this time instead of just looking at it up above.
Our job will be to scrape the grease off of the walls and the floats.
What what exactly is in here? Well, besides the regular human waste and grease, there's always a pile of spaghetti once we pump it down sitting right there in the corner waiting for us.
That's spaghetti, is it? Yeah, spaghetti Undigested spaghetti.
Looks like a nice vermicelli.
Yeah.
Or it could be a linguine.
I can't tell.
It's in a shadow.
How long will we be down there? Oh, probably half an hour.
That's great.
These tripods will lower us in? Well, we'll use the ladder, but they'll be used for fall restraint, and then if something bad happens they can crank us out of there.
If we're unable to climb the ladder, they can pull us out.
We'll have a harness on.
What sort of bad things might happen in there? Heat stroke or heart attack.
You really wouldn't be overcome by gases because the meters will give you a real good warning on that.
I'm getting a pretty good warning right now, to be honest with you.
Les and I suited up in all the appropriate safety gear, including oxygen masks and hard hats.
Then we prepared to descend into the bowels of hell.
Oh, les.
Les, we are in the toilet, my friend.
This is paradise.
We are in the toilet.
Think Maui.
If you can take this and go around.
Oh, oh, oh! Knock that cholesterol down.
This is the final stop for thousands of toilets, sinks, bathtubs, and municipal drains, and les and I were up to our knees in the thick of it.
Oh, god! Okay.
This is the most disgusting thing I've ever seen or ever done.
Right here, les.
This is it.
This is it! This is the worst! [ Coughing .]
Hey, les, you a, uh, are you a religious man? I'm a spiritual man.
I'm about to become one.
I'm going to be real good for the rest of my life because I don't want to come here when I die.
[ Coughing .]
Oh, [bleep.]
.
Oh, my god.
Oh, god.
It's just unspeakable.
Oh, my god.
Oh, god.
Man, I have stood in some bad things before, but, really, this is [bleep.]
.
Man! It's like it's alive.
After scraping, sloshing, and sucking for what seemed like an eternity, I'd finally had more than I could stomach.
I got nothing to say.
Nothing.
I'm out.
[ Coughing .]
I had to leave les.
You understand? I had to leave him.
That's okay.
I couldn't help him.
I couldn't do anything for him.
[ Coughing .]
Look at him.
You're like some firefighter from hell.
How do you guys do this every day? I mean, how in the hell do you do this every day? You know, when you sweat like that, it almost looks like a tear.
It's tears of joy.
You may be curious about what les does with all his honey.
I know I was.
Okay, here's a question.
Where the hell are we? We're in the drying beds of Madison metropolitan sewage district.
This place was built specifically for what? For drying sludge.
The stuff that we've collected, the grease and the waste and all of it, it's in the honey wagon.
It's going to come out of the honey wagon and then we're going to spread it around here on this bed.
It's going to spread out on its own, right, and then in this kind of weather, in a day, come back tomorrow, and you can scrape it into a pile like that, and it will be dewatered.
Is that an invitation? Yes, okay.
Sure, I'm not doing anything.
Heck, I'm in Madison, Wisconsin.
I'd love to dry out some sludge with you.
I'm going to turn this? There, and it'll come right off.
There you go.
So that piece of steel is holding back roughly 6,000 gallons of the most putrid fluid that ever found its way onto our fair planet.
It's about to come out of here with, uh That's right.
Extreme prejudice? Yes.
All right, now what do I do to make it happen? Well, we're going to go in and turn the pump on.
Three, two, one, go! Oh! Hoo-hoo! Oh, man! Good to the last drop.
You ever wonder where the stuff in your toilet goes when you flush it? It goes here.
Plop, plop Fizz, fizz.
Oh, what a stench it is.
How long does it gurgle and trickle and ooze? A few minutes, but it's almost all out of there.
I don't know how to tell you this, but there's sludge and grease and crap all over your fancy drying area.
Yeah, this is a mess.
This chunky sewage soup will be left out to bake beneath the Wisconsin summer sun.
Once dried, it's scooped up and hauled off to the local landfill.
There, it's mixed in with other by-products of modern life and buried forever, but that's a whole other dirty job.
So now it's, uh, it's quitting time? It's quitting time.
Four o'clock.
Pools opened, margaritas are being served.
You make it sound good.
Now that you know how to get to the house.
Yeah, we'll swing by, have a look at your septic tank.
Next on "dirty jobs" I hope you're hungry 'cause it's lunchtime at a Florida worm ranch.
I want to see what kind of worm rancher you really are.
Today we've come to pasco county in southwest Florida to visit a ranch The c.
R.
M.
Ranch.
At the c.
R.
M.
Ranch, they don't have horses or cows or even sheep.
They got worms, lots and lots of worms.
But here's the thing.
It's not the worms that are valuable.
It's their poop, because it turns out that worm poop, known as castings, make an excellent organic, pesticide-free plant food.
So I'm here with John rowles.
John is one of the owners of the c.
R.
M.
Worm ranch.
That's correct.
One of the ranchers, if you will.
You can call us that.
You could have gone with horses or cows or goats or any kind of animal.
You went with worms.
How come? Well, worms are low maintenance, real easy to take care of.
They, well, basically do three things.
They eat, they poop, and they have sex.
Man, that's a great life.
What do they eat? Animal waste.
Poop? So basically this job is about shoveling poop? And lots of it.
Whoa, whoa! Where you going? What? You're not even down.
Oh.
Put it in drive.
Feeding two million worms requires heavy machinery and tons and tons of animal manure.
We could be here all day doing this! I think that's a handsome load.
That's pitiful.
Kind of harsh.
If you're gonna work in a worm ranch, you better get a large load.
What is it with all you worm poop ranchers and your attitudes? I'd love to chat but I'm very busy, John.
Let's go feed the worms.
I got work to do.
Turn your wheel straight.
Hey, straighten your wheels! Straighten your wheel, straighten your wheel.
A little bit further.
Go ahead, drop it there.
Don't run me over.
Rowe: Now don't get the wrong idea.
The heavy lifting at c.
R.
M.
Is the easy part.
The real work is done by hand.
All right, who are these guys? This is Jonathan, Jeremiah.
Jeremiah? All right.
They're here to assist you and I.
We believe in child labor.
Thanks for stopping by.
So this manure came from where? This came from a zoo, and we call it zoo poo.
Can you tell from looking at it what sort of animal produced it? Well, once in a while you might get an elephant dung.
That's an impressive piece of poo right there.
Sure is.
But this could just be a potpourri.
We have no idea what's in there.
Okay, I just thought I'd ask.
I like to know what I'm shoveling.
It takes 12 tons of manure each week to feed Jim's hungry herd, but life at the ranch isn't all work and no play, as I soon found out.
A poop fight? Oh, this is great.
This is great.
Guys, this is Come on out to Florida, Mike.
It's going to be great.
Shovel some poo.
Okay, son.
Come on, this is a family show.
[ Sighs .]
We still got plenty more to do.
Yeah, we got plenty more to do.
This turd's for you.
After our little poo party, it was time to serve the worms their dessert du jour.
Today's treat stale bread.
So I'm putting bread on top of the worm beds, John.
Why am I putting bread on top of the worm beds? Well, as you know, when you're at home, you have bread that gets stale.
We decided to try to get rid of it.
The worms love it.
It has some simple starch, simple sugars in it, and they just eat it up.
So this is like a continental breakfast.
Are we feeding them, or are you just trying to pull them to the surface? It pulls them to the surface, it feeds them, and it's just a way to get rid of the bread.
So this one's been here a while? They love it.
They get up under there.
Oh, my gosh, look at this.
That's a lot of worms.
And these are called the red wigglers? That is a pile of worms.
Look at those.
Here, let's do something fun.
Go ahead and put it on there.
You hungry? I'm going to see what kind of worm rancher you really are.
Here.
You're not going to eat that, are you? I need some mustard.
Some mustard for my man, John.
Man: How about tabasco sauce? Good enough.
Tabasco's fine.
So you got piles of shredded paper here at the worm poop ranch.
How come? It's another waste stream we have here in the United States.
People have to get rid of the newspapers they read and stuff.
The worms actually love it.
The starches and some of the simple sugars and stuff in there, they'll just eat it up.
This is their fiber, basically.
Correct.
So we're going to spread out the paper with the poop? Every bit of it.
Cover the paper.
Cover the paper.
Well? Well, it seems like the last thing we have is to harvest the castings.
Let's harvest the castings.
And just so we're clear, what is a casting? Casting is worm poop.
Okay, so when you say casting, you're just euphemistically putting a spin on poop.
Correct.
I'm going to stick with poop.
You go with castings.
So this would be the harvester.
Yes, it is.
I don't believe I've seen this in a hardware store.
So how does this thing work? Well, Mike, the first thing we do is turn it on.
Huh.
So what am I looking at here? What's happening? This is called a harvester.
It's three sets of screens.
The first two screens we have separate the castings from everything else.
They fall right through there.
They're a smaller screen.
The last screen you see here is a little bit larger.
The eggs fall through, worm eggs, and at the very end you can see here the food and any worms will come out through there.
Now when you say food, you mean poop that hasn't been eaten yet? That's correct.
Just so we're clear.
Okay.
So, John, these two worms right here seem to be a little better than a first-name basis.
They're having sex, aren't they? Yes.
And, uh, walk me through the technique here, because it looks, uh, I don't know.
I've never seen it done that way.
Well, they look combined there.
If you can see, they're inside each other's skin and the sperm and the egg will transfer across and they'll carry that sperm and keep it with them.
So they literally crawl They just separated on us.
Oh, look at that.
All right, now what are they going to do? Now they're going to gang up on me, aren't they? Yeah, that's about it for these two.
Yeah, what's this? This is the afterglow? Just a little crawling around and I'll call you? Yeah, sure you will.
Love ya, mean it, all that stuff.
See ya later.
Right.
You don't get to see them having sex very often.
Part of the mystery of life, huh? Part of the mystery of life.
Yeah, this is a big day for all of us, John.
Well, there it is, folks, the good stuff.
One hundred percent pure, unadulterated worm poop, or castings, if you will.
Either way, spread some of this in your garden and your hungry plants will thank you.
But what if you're a farmer with acres and acres of hungry crops to feed? No problem.
As the British would say, "put on a kettle of tea.
" So this has got to be one of the biggest teapots in existence.
This is Chris quattlebaum, and he runs the show here at the critters and crawlers worm ranch.
Correct.
So, Chris, walk me through the actual brewing process.
You use poop bags, tea bags, what? No, the process is you fill it up with water, 500 gallons of water.
You'll go and measure out 100 pounds of castings, and you just pour directly into the tank itself.
Why don't we do it? Let's do it.
I've got time.
You got time? Tell me what to do.
All right, what we're going to do So, uh, worm-poop tea smells bad.
Okay.
I mean, just so you know, 'cause I know you probably don't smell it anymore.
Nope, we're used to it.
So this is like the mixing process, obviously.
The water's just going in, 500 gallons.
If it smells this bad without the castings in there, I mean, it can't get any better.
That's right.
Well, we're not here to get better.
We're here to get dirty.
So bring me some castings.
Bring me some worm poop! Let's get it! You know, they throw poop at each other over at that other ranch, just so you know.
We're a little bit cleaner facility.
Uh-huh.
There we go.
It's starting to smell better.
Absolutely.
Okay, now what? Now we just let it brew.
Set a spell? Ready now? No, 24 hours.
Okay.
Now? No.
No.
After steeping for 24 hours, the tea is ready to serve.
Turn your sprayer on.
I'm spraying poop! This one? Here we go! We got spray? There we go.
I'm spraying tea! All right, Chris.
See you around.
So whether you're working on the ranch, brewing the tea, or spraying the fields, producing high-grade worm poop is definitely a dirty job.
Captions by vitac captions paid for by discovery communications, inc.

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