What an interesting critter. There's TONS of 1" long grubs in my current active pile, but there were none to be found in my finished compost pile... or so I thought. I found two of these guys... they're closer to 1.5" and have nearly transparent rear ends. The orange heads are pretty trippy. Are they good or bad? I don't really care. Compost piles are ecosystems and they're clearly eating the decaying organic matter in there... nothing wrong with that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMzrDTLJNSw Composting dead animals isn't weird. Do it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2TQy3QaG98 It really is that simple, right? Dig just under the top layer in a few spots, dump into a bag. While I'm not going with this particular lab, I was doing some comparative research on techniques although there's not much to it. I got my cooler packs, my quart-sized ziploc bags and a trowel. I'm going to take a sample from the middle, but I'm more interested in the materials that are on the outer edges of the pile. These particular areas are where it's not as likely that the higher register of thermophilic activity was able to reach. I'm still not worried, but I'd like to make my test as honest as I can get it. The stuff from the center of the pile will be thoroughly…