winnowing worms: an unsavoury interlude

Probably not as disturbing as that old chestnut *click at your own risk!!!*, but please consider yourself warned.

The T spent a sizable portion of her Saturday evening picking these fellows out of the night's quota (and a little extra for fun) of rice.

There are 36 worms in there. My mother and sister were highly disgusted and squealed things along the lines of "Take it away take it away take it away" (sister) and "No I cannot enjoy the wonder of the worms" (mother). My father said nothing but, "They're quite big, eh?"
I was rather pleased with the whole exercise because:

1. They are worms that are NO LONGER IN THE RICE and it is ALL BECAUSE OF ME.
2. This episode reinforces my confidence in my ability to detect motion of the littlest magnitude when wonderful things are to be seen. (other reinforcing episodes all involved birds, e.g. the bird I spotted just entering its hole in the trunk of a tree when we were on a bird-watching walk in Whitefield. The chief ornithologist said, "Well spotted!", yay! Everyone seems to think birds are much cooler, but a bird is not 36 worms.)

Some observations about rice-worms:
The worms begin as hefty little fellows - a clear millimeter across at least - wriggling their way all over the container and performing feats of acrobatics that can entertain for hours.
Within ten minutes or thereabouts, however, they have lost their rotundity somewhat, and their energy a great deal more.
By the time the twentieth worm is found, therefore, the first few have reduced in size to minuscule versions of their former selves. Some of this size were actually found by me while winnowing. I am very proud of this fact, because they are tiny.
Each worm has some black spots near the front, and some legs. Perhaps they are not worms, at that. They have - wossname - striations? all along their length and look rather like light-coloured very small earthworms only with eyes. And they move like worms in cartoons, and are rather fun to watch until they reach the lip of the cup and try to get away.

I have very much work to do and my sister's off to college on monday, but I still *had* to make the time to create this. Enjoy!

*WARNING. MOTION OF WORMS FOLLOWS*

P.S. Kindly do not hate me because I do not agree with you on all the things you find disgusting.

The end.