Planned Obsolescence

From Wiki: "In industrial design is a policy of deliberately planning or designing a product with a limited useful life, so it will become obsolete or nonfunctional after a certain period of time."

And so, the Acu-Life Ear Wax Removal Syringe from Health Enterprises Inc., with its "patented doctor design", has been thoughtfully made fragile. Well, designing doctor, I say to you: "First, do no harm!" That is your Hippocratic oath. By designing such a piece of crap, you are doing harm to the environment.

And now, please don't ask me why I would need to buy an ear wax removal syringe when ear wax moves out of the ear canal naturally without external aids... Let's just say my kids complain and I thought it would be kind of cool to use a syringe like they have in a physician's office.)

Behold the broken product, which lasted a good 10 minutes before unceremoniously breaking in two.

I then researched why the plunger was designed this way, not a straight continuous piece, but two pieces tapering in the middle to a small point of contact. It seems that the plunger in some syringes is designed to be breakable, so that they are limited to one use only. There are multiple risks involved in re-using a needle:

The tip of a reused needle can be weakened to the point where it breaks off and gets stuck under your skin. From BD's site (which manufacturers needles, clearly they are not objective):

"A reused needle doesn't inject as easily or as cleanly as a new one and can cause pain, bleeding, and bruising.

Studies have shown that there's a link between needle reuse and the appearance of lumps of fatty tissue that can form at an injection site (lipodystrophy).

BD's thin, fine, high quality needles are designed to be used one time only. These are photographs showing the type of damage that can occur with needle reuse.*"

But in this case, there is NO problem with needle re-use. There is no needle on the ear wax removal syringe. The syringe is simply an ordinary syringe with a Luer Lock (screw on) tip, with a patented blue plastic attachment that directs the water spray.

I wrote to Health Enterprises and received an offer for a replacement the very next day. The replacement was also promptly mailed to me (but it still had the breakable plunger). Excellent customer service, and essentially, the company has made nothing on the sale. Which leads to my feeling guilty for posting this.

However, I have the best solution which still allows Health Enterprises to make a profit. You should still buy the product: it works very well, and it is safe enough for my kids to use it unsupervised. After some research of options for ear wax removal on the market, I chose this based on reviews. After purchasing, go to any pharmacy and purchase a 60 cc Luer Lock syringe for about $1.60 CAD to swap out with the original 20 cc syringe when the original breaks (as it will). Functionally, it is superior, as you find that you will quickly run out of water when you use the 10cc model. It is the special tip which is what you are paying your $5 toward, not the ordinary syringe. And, if you're fortunate or gentle enough that the syringe never breaks, then everyone is happy.

Below, a picture of the original packaging (top), the original syringe 20 cc (middle), and my souped up gigantic 60 cc syringe with the original tip attached (below).

Bike Helmet Colour

I'm tired of looking nerdy with my vented oversize helmet. I've decided to buy one of the new trendy yet retro helmets that are round without a zillion vents, more reminiscent of skater boy helmets. I can't stand looking like an alien insect with the futuristic honeycomb designs slanted up toward the back as if someone stepped on the front of the helmet and the back lifted up. Those souped up helmets just doesn't match with the dresses I sometimes wear while puttering around the city.

Also, my helmet dates to 2002, far past its expiry date of five years. I wear it almost every day, and I don't remember buying it. Have I come up with enough reasons to buy a helmet yet?



So I've settled on the Giro Reverb, not yet available in stores. As for the colour... If I was truthful, the real reason for the new helmet is because of vanity. I'm tired of the old helmet, and it just looks bad to me. And yet, when it comes time to choose a colour, I need to know what is most visible. For motorcyclists, a white helmet results in 24% lower risk of motorcycle related injuries than donning a black helmet.

A law firm website suggests yellow, orange, and green and preferably fluorescent. These are superior to black, grey, and white, which tend to blend into the background. The "Bicycle Helmet Safety Institute" suggests that neon colours are the best but have gone out of fashion, and that white is the next best colour. They also recommend festooning your helmet in reflective stickers, or better yet, mount lights on it.

Interestingly enough, according to Bicycling Info, a black shell helmet does not overheat your head any more than other colours!

Now, if only I could do something about drivers who don't see me when I'm lit up like a Christmas tree.

(Update, January 12, 2012: My special order helmet finally arrived at West Point Cycles. With the Entertainment coupon for 25% applied, the base cost is $60, which is quite reasonable and competitive with US prices.)

Teaching Older Kids to Ride a Bike

When the kids were 3 and 5, I signed them up for Pedalheads, an intensive one week half day camp to teach the kids how to ride bicycles. It seemed all my friends were doing it too. On some days after the drop off, I would observe the camp from a distance. I saw some kids crashing into others, which explains how my older kid's fender got dented. And during this 2.5 hour lesson, I'd see them spending time just hanging out at the playground.

The intention is to have all kids without training wheels at the end of the week. This worked for my eldest, but not for the youngest. But neither of them could ride. I was told that 90% of the kids learn to ride within the week. So, mine are the 10% that do not. What are the odds of two kids failing to learn? That is 0.10*0.10=0.01. 1/100. I spent $360, each kid at $180, to be the 1/100 parents with this outcome. The youngest was probably too young, but I knew plenty of friends' kids who learned at that age.

Over the next four years, I let my husband teach the kids. Both of us would run around holding on to the kids' handlebars and seats and get... bad backs. Of course, this is an exaggeration, as the actual number of attempts was something like once a year. Also, the kids would say they didn't want to try, that they were too afraid of falling. The eldest was almost there. If you pushed her for a start, she could continue pedalling and stop by herself. But she refused to try to start.

The kids did two triathlons with us holding on or using training wheels.

It had become embarrassing. My husband and I are avid cyclists, both of us cyclist commuters and he a competitive road cyclist and me a triathlete.

Pedalheads does not give discounts for second time repeaters. I was considering Pedalheads again and was right about to sign them up, to my husband's objections, when I did some basic research on how to teach kids to ride. I came up with Sheldon Brown's site. It's quite comprehensive.

Next I found the Holy Grail: a Youtube clip which shows a non-profit group in New York City, Bike New York which offers the course "Teach Your Child to Ride a Bike."

Rich Conroy of that group explains that the pedals are taken off and the seat is lowered so that the learner can rest their feet flat on the ground. The child then is told to walk the bike forward while looking ahead and try to make it go as fast as they can. When the bike is going, they can try to lift their feet off the ground and balance.

So on Sunday I told the kids, "Today you will both learn to ride a bike." At first we started them on a slightly sloping parking lot, starting them on the high part of it. I decided not to remove the pedals because I was convinced that we would be needing the pedals very soon and it would be too much trouble to remove then put them back on again.

After 20 minutes of practising with the youngest, my elder daughter who had been singing "Hey! Ho! Let's go!" and zooming all around the parking lot after getting a start from the slope, wiped out and hurt herself badly. She said her hand was broken, and she had scrapes on her knee. Inside I was thinking of quitting, but I just told her that when she falls off, she needs to start again or she would never learn.

I showed her how to put the right pedal at 2:00 o'clock and use the left leg for balance, and to push off with the right leg against the right pedal. She took off immediately. That was it. One down, one to go.

Meanwhile, my husband had reverted back to pushing the youngest around holding on to the bike and she crashed. She now refused to have her father teach her.

We started her on a very slightly sloping paved play area. She kept practising pushing off hard with both feet and trying to balance. (Unfortunately I had already forgotten the method espoused by Rich Conroy... about walking forward as quickly as they can). Despite my ineptitude, it was clear on each new launch that she glided just a little bit longer. Finally she made it all the way clear to the other side of the lot! It was a breakthrough.

It wasn't a steady line of progress upward, but the pattern of longer glides was there. Meanwhile I had to deal with a constant stream of pessimism from her. "I'm never going to be able to do that again." And then I would point out that she was able to do it again when she went further.

The next step was adding pedalling. I just told her that after she pushes off, that when she's gliding to put her feet on the pedals. The best thing about this method is that the child directs the rate of progress. I told her to try when she is ready. And no sore backs for the parents.

The final step was starting to pedal from a dead stop. I showed her the two o'clock position, but she ended up ignoring me and finding her own way of starting. She insisted she needed the left pedal in the right position.

Time from removing training wheels to riding fully by herself: One hour. It might have been faster without all the negative self talk, or if she wasn't so afraid from previous falls. She also said it was helpful to see her sister ride first, so she knew it was possible.

Now the kids want to go bike riding every day.

(Update August 2013:  I used my method to teach my brother's kids how to ride.  They had been using training wheels.  We spent around 1.5 hours teaching the 4 and 6 year old how to ride.  After about an hour, they learned how to balance.  Unfortunately, my brother kept going against my advice and sometimes held on to the kids' bikes with the kids in the saddle while he brought them back to the start of the hill to try again.  I wonder if that made them unlearn the balancing, because each time after he did that, they would do a lousy job balancing on the next attempt.

The other problem was that the saddle was causing discomfort because one of the bicycles was too high, leading to too much pressure on the contact area.  So this led to an early abandonment of the effort.  Given more time, they probably would have "got it" because they were SO CLOSE.  They were already on the putting the feet on the pedals stage, but we ran out of time on the last day as the sun went down and it was bed time.  I hope they can remember the feeling of balance the next time they learn.)

Prevent Diaper Rash

And now for something completely different...

This one doesn't even fit in with my blog. Well, sort of does. It helps people. It is a green idea. But I didn't do any research for this. My kids have long grown out of diapers, but I am writing this for you, if you're here from a Google search, because I don't think my method is common knowledge, and if I can save just one baby from getting diaper rash, then all the hours I've spent on this blog over the years are worth it.

Forget diaper rash creams, diaper wipes, vaseline, whatever. Here is how to prevent diaper rash.

1. If your baby has peed: Remove diaper. Put on new diaper. That's it. You're done. Put the baby down.
2. If your baby has pooed: Remove diaper. Rinse your baby's bum under the tap with warm water. DO NOT USE SOAP. Pat dry with clean cloth. I use small cloths I bought in bulk from Walmart (see the picture above). Put on new diaper.
3. When your baby has a bath, then you are free to use whatever baby soap you normally use.
4. Learn the signs of when they're having a poop: child concentrating or whatever your child does, so you can change their diaper right away after a poo.

How did I come up with this?

My eldest had diaper rash. Once. We were on vacation and my parents-in-law were watching her. They did not notice she had pooped. When I am taking care of her, I notice right away. In fact, I could always tell exactly when she was pooping. She would look like she was concentrating and pause whatever she was doing. And then the smell. But it seems grandparents have no sense of smell, nor do they notice anything.

So she must have been in her dirty diaper for some time when I discovered it. That was when she got her one and only case of diaper rash. What a nightmare it was... she would scream every time we tried to clean her behind. Can you imagine putting water on an open sore? I would cry every time I had to change her diaper when she had the rash. It didn't last long. I had her with no diaper on until it healed.

My second child never had diaper rash. Never.

What I did differently with the second is that I did not rinse her bum off when she peed, only when she pooed. And I also did not use soap, except when bathing her. I did not use diaper creams, Vaseline, or whatever. The idea behind this is to toughen up her skin naturally. It worked so well that she never once had diaper rash, saving me from buying expensive creams, diaper wipes, and tears.

Please don't use diaper wipes. Environmentally unfriendly, and not kind to baby's bottom. Use them only when you know you will not have access to a tap with warm water. Having two children, I bought a total of two boxes of wipes, and only finished one of them.

Does it matter what kind of diapers you use? I experimented with cloth diapers, but most of the time I used disposables. I used Huggies for daytime and Pampers for nighttime, since the Huggies caught poo better, and the Pampers absorbed better at night.

For that matter, we used the bare minimum for diapers too. I toilet trained them at the ages of 22 and 25 months. It only took 3 days for them to learn, using my method, modified from the extensive research I did. And they night trained themselves. But that'll be another blog post, depending on the response for this one.

Running with the Kids

Summertime... and the livin' is easy. The perfect opportunity to spring a running program on my kids! Bwahahaha!

Some of the more skeptical of you are thinking, running? My kids would hate that. But surprise surprise, my kids loved it, although I did hear some whining at the first session. Very quickly their fitness improved and these pseudo family walk/runs became fun. Or maybe that had to do with the fact that we follow up each session with a walk to the mall for dinner.

Last summer I did the same program with the kids, a Learn to Run 10K. Or at least, I tried to do it. We managed about 8 sessions before September rolled around, then by coincidence, there was a 5K Run for the Cure and the kids were more than ready for it. They ran almost the whole way.

The kids did well at the 5K run. Well, at least my 5 year old did well. The 7 year old ran out of steam at the 3K mark when she realized her little sister was a better runner, and did an "I refuse to look like I'm trying" move. She had be coaxed to continue, and it was not a matter of being tired, but a matter of feeling like she was in control. This is how I read it, anyway. The end of the run was in a drizzle of rain.

This time around, both kids are loving the sessions, especially the youngest. I am not planning to have them eventually run 10K, which I think is too far for little kids. More like 5K at the most. Today I had a race with my youngest uphill. She weighs 38 pounds and I weigh 123. Despite my triathlon training, she had me working at 90% and redlining it at the end of the sprint. But I didn't give up, nope. I waited for her to tire out. She would easily outrun most of the adults in my triathlon clinic.

I highly recommend the training program. You start with 1 minute "runs" which are really just a very slow jog at talking pace, followed by a 2 minute walk. You repeat this 8 times. Easy peasy. In no time at all, y'all will be real runners.

SFG: Mistakes, I've Made a Few

Okay, I've made more than a "few" mistakes. I admit it.

Reader iEye commented: "...I actually live in the same area and I'm about to start square foot gardening myself... Considering we are practically neighbors; do you have any concerns, problems, or advice that are more specific to this city and environment?"

Not sure how many of my problems are specific to this local environment. This is more a listing of my regrets. Here is my wisdom, for what it's worth, as a veteran of 2.2 years of SFG in Vancouver. It may be a case of the blind leading the not so blind, but here goes.

Location

If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely choose a better location for the garden. When I moved the garden, I found that the soil was overgrown with a strange root system, very strong and fine roots, that managed to grow up through the landscaping cloth.

I figured out later that it was the tree roots from the neighbour's forest. Somehow the trees managed to find my trove of fertile soil and shot out roots 5m away into my yard and up into my raised bed. The solution is either to get better landscape cloth--mine was quite weak after only two years--and to locate it further away from any nearby trees than you might think necessary. There were no visible above ground roots anywhere near my garden in its first location. I bought the cheapest landscape cloth. This time out I bought professional grade landscape cloth.

Planting Too Late

I tried to follow the advice this year of not planting until after a certain nighttime temperature was held. That was a mistake. Every year I don't plant early enough. This year I planted in mid-May. One of my expert gardening friends planted theirs a good 3-4 weeks before me. Do you think *they* waited for the right nighttime temperatures? NOPE. Their garden is doing much much better as their plants were already very far along before I even planted a single seed. Already my spinach is bolting and looking gangly. I should have planted it much sooner, and planted new plants every two weeks after. Next year I'm planting in April.

Patience: Compost Not Ready

Second point. This year's garden is doing fairly well, but the percentage germination seems to be lower than I remember with my older seeds. The carrots are maybe at 50%. Neither of my kabocha (squash) came up at all. Either the seeds are too old, or maybe the compost was not quite ready yet when I used it. If I did it over again, I would wait at least a few days before planting the seeds, and wet the soil thoroughly. At least that would eliminate the soil as being the problem.

The Grid Material

I originally used thin wood dowels from Kerrisdale lumber for the grid system. It fell apart two years later. I'm now using wild bamboo harvested from my neighbour's invasive bamboo which is growing in my backyard. It's free and it's not likely to fall apart. The wet weather in Vancouver was just too much for the thin wood dowels.

Sharing Seeds

I now have about 10 envelopes of seeds. I bought too many seeds for such a small garden. I should really split the seeds with a fellow vegetable gardener, because even the smallest quantities I bought from Westcoast Seeds are too much. Seeds have a shelf life of a few years at most (some longer) and as they age, fewer will germinate.

Strawberries

This is my third year and finally I was able to harvest a few berries without the animals getting to them first... Containers off the ground are better for strawberries in my "wild" urban backyard in the middle of the city. I'm not sure what is eating my berries, but my guesses are: rats or birds. When I transferred the garden over, I potted some of my strawberry plants and put them in a raised area under netting. So for the first time, some berries coloured and were eaten by me. Unfortunately, the berries are sour and not sweet like store bought, so it is the first instance where what I have grown is not as good as the store. I bought the strawberries from David Hunter Garden Centre, and they are just not doing all that well under my novice care.

Zucchini
This is my first year growing zucchini. The plant is already taking over a substantial amount of real estate and no zucchini yet. I should have planted it in another location, because those big leaves shade so much of my other plants and make those squares useless.

Planning

Okay, well this is not a mistake I made. It's just a great place to share this fantastic planning tool I found at Gardener's Supply Company. This tool allows you to map out what you're planting. Very cool.

Compost: Soil Amendments for the Square Foot Garden

Time to Move the Garden

It was an unusually cold spring, but all the while I was thinking about the work involved in moving my garden.

That's right. Moving my garden. I had located it about 6m from a neighbour's prolific pine needle dropping tree. I suppose the needles ruined the ph of the soil, because I have to blame someone or something for my garden's failure last year! I moved the raised bed garden walls, which didn't fit together well anymore once I rotated and mixed them up (foolish!), and the Frame-It-All planks didn't sit well because the ground wasn't exactly level. But somehow I managed to get it in place again after two hours of fiddling with the &*^% planks.

Moral of the story: when choosing a location for the garden, look up.

I really digress. This post is meant to be about compost. Focus... focus...

Why I Needed Compost

Each year, and indeed each time after you finish using a square in your raised bed in the Square Foot Gardening method, you are supposed to add a little trowel full of compost and work it into the soil. Two years after putting the garden in, my soil volume had markedly decreased and was looking sort of dry.

The compost that Mel recommends is a mix of 5 different kinds. I only managed three the first time.

Here are some sources of compost I dug up.


1. City of Vancouver: $250 delivered for 6 cubic m (minimum purchase)


I spent many hours researching where to get compost. First, the City of Vancouver is giving away 1 m3 of free compost in the month of May per resident. According to posters at the UBC Botanical Gardens forum, the compost there is what some organic farmers use, but is "rough and full of cedar and bark." I'm not crazy about driving down to the landfill location in Delta to pick up the compost, even if it's free. The cost of delivery, amount being a minimum of 6 m3, is $190. Since I only need 1 m3, delivery is out of the question.


2. Craigslist: Free but you shovel and deliver yourself


Also, I tried Craigslist. Someone in Richmond was giving away their compost, which they had delivered from the City of Vancouver. Even though I emailed the same day the listing came out, it was all gone by the time the poster got back to me. Craigslist has multiple listings for compost delivery, but all were too expensive for my small amount as they all charged a flat fee.


3. MyGardenBag: $170 delivery included.


Another possibility, if you're flush with cash and lazy (I am the latter, not the former), you can try mygardenbag.com. The price for 1 cubic yard of soil amendment is $170, delivery included.


4. Lawnboy Enterprises: $63 delivery included.


Finally, my research turned up Lawnboy Enterprises, just a short distance from my home! Located around the north end of the Canada Line bridge at the foot of Cambie Street, is a little place that reputedly caters to commercial landscapers. You'll see big piles of earth as you bicycle by (as I do on a regular basis!). I'd read a range of reviews of this place on Googlemaps, mostly drumming them for being rude, or not knowledgeable, and giving smaller quantities than promised ("a cubic yard is more like a jacuzzi full, not a bathtub" as they tell you). Since this place seems to have a target customer base of professional landscapers, and not single homeowners, the critics seem like a bunch of whiners to me. What you are getting from them is low cost bulk product, not service and knowledge. That's not their game.


When I called them, they were definitely not knowledgeable about their product or the use of the product. I asked her what was in the compost. She had no idea, but she referred me to the company that produces the compost, giving me their phone number. She asked me whether I could call her back to tell her the answer once I had it. (The answer from the company was: brush, vegetable trimmings, yard trimmings, no manure). Later I asked her why the product was steaming and whether it would burn my plants. Again, she didn't know, and so I called the compost supply company. They assured me that the compost would be all right if I wetted it down and mixed it with the other soil. I called Lawnboy back with all this information as requested because, hey, I'm a nice person and it only took a few minutes out of my day.


How low cost was low cost? Only $29 for the cubic yard of compost, and $34 for delivery. Yeah, you heard right: $34 for delivery! That is less than half of the cheapest quote I received or saw for any compost delivery company. Total cost: $63 plus tax, much lower than any other alternative (except the free compost on Craigslist, but then I would have had to shovel the stuff myself--)

When the truck arrived, the delivery guys were really helpful and patient with me. They let me set up some boxes underneath to catch the falling compost, and one of them even stood under the flowing compost to put my wheeled yard trimmings container to catch the compost so I would have less shovelling to do--his suggestion, and a smart one. This method ended up catching only a small amount, though, while my containers on the ground were perfectly filled. A tarp would have been a good idea as well.

I was quite concerned because the compost was literally steaming as it poured and as I shovelled it. In fact, the next day it was still warm in the containers as I added it to the bare garden bed for mixing. Also, it smelled like poo. Not a good smell. But two days later, it just had a nice earthy smell, a bit woody. The compost quality seemed good: dark, mostly fine, with some wood chips (2 cm x 4 cm) and short sections of branches. Some disturbing contents: 4 small bits of plastic (garden trimmings are in bags and as they are "de-bagged" by machine, sometimes it's not perfect), and a piece of metal the size of half a cigar! Weird. But that may have been in the truck bed, because the rest of the pile was fine.