The King and Queen of Worms Explain Worm Gruntin'

Gary Revell, The King of Worms.

"It may be doubted whether there are any other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world as the earthworm." -- Charles Darwin, 1881

Worm Gruntin' in Sopchoppy, Florida

35 miles and 100 years southwest of Tallahassee... live Gary and Audrey Revell, the undisputed King and Queen of Worms. In the 35 years that they've been married, Gary and Audrey have "rooted" enough earthworms to reach to the moon and back. It just goes to show that you can reach the moon from your own backyard -- if you do what you love.

It's part of my backyard too.

And you wonder where I've been all day... ;) - c

Fascinating earthworm facts:

• One acre of land equals one million earthworms.
• One acre of earthworms can recompose 10 tons of leaves in one year.
• There are approximately 2,700 different kinds of earthworms.
• The largest earthworm ever found (in South America) was 22 feet.
• Earthworms have a total of 16 hearts.
• Earthworms hatch from cocoons smaller than a grain of rice.
• Earthworms keep the earth soft and plants healthy.
• Earthworms are 82% protein and edible - yum!
• Eating earthworms can reduce cholesterol.
• Earthworm castings (a.k.a. poo) are used as premium fertilizers.
• With a wooden stake and iron, you can raise a family.

Audrey Revell, The Queen of Worms.

In the peak months of March, April, and May earthworms bring $25 to $28 a can to the baiters who grunt for worms in the sandy soils of Apalachicola National Forest. In the flatwoods of the Florida Panhandle baiting is not the act of threading worm on hook but an earlier step -- the extraction of the worm from the ground. To "grunt" -- or "scrub," or "rub" -- for worms, the baiter drives a wooden stake into the earth. The stake, carved from black gum, or cherry, or white hickory, is called a stob -- a fine old word, a Medieval English survival by way of Scots dialect transplanted to the southern woods. The baiter drives in the stob one-handed, with blows from the long bar he calls his iron. Then, kneeling, he grips the iron firmly at both ends. Leaning his weight into the task, like a man planing wood, he strokes the length of the iron repeatedly and rhythmically over the top of the stob, producing a deep metallic croaking. The sound is vibrant, interrogative, lovesick, alien, like the mating call of some giant amphibian in an iron mine on Mars.

East of the Ochlockonee River, in the soft soil of Wakulla County, the stob is huge. The baiters there -- "those Sopchoppy boys," as they are known on the other side -- use a flat, heavy iron with a kind of paddle grip cut into one end. Around the little Wakulla County town of Sopchoppy heavy gear seems to work best. West of the Ochlockonee, in the firmer, more resonant soil of Liberty County, the stob is smaller, and the iron more delicate and graceful -- a curving length of steel cut from the leaf spring of a car or truck. On either side of the river the technique is the same. With his iron held edge-on, the baiter knocks in his stob. Turning the iron flat side downward, he commences grunting. When he has hit the stob five or six licks, a magical thing happens. For reasons unknown to science but resonatingly clear to worms, the song of the iron drives pale legions of annelids from the safety of their tunnels. The baiter becomes a Pied Piper of worms. The finest bait in the entire South -- finest, some say, on the planet -- begins appearing everywhere on the surface of the ground.

Hungry for more? Read the entire article on worm grunting at The Atlantic Online.