Monthly Archives

June 2019

Why eating lunch alone is bad for you

By | health and safety, Landscaping | No Comments

My regular work day includes a thirty minute lunch with no other formal breaks. When I first started with my current company, not having morning and afternoon breaks felt weird but there was an upside. I finished early. So, to ease my body into the new schedule, I would take quick micro-breaks to drink and eat a snack without sitting down. Now, in my fourth season, it’s all fine.

Lunches

I normally eat lunches alone because we don’t have huge crews and I need the mental break from physically demanding work. Unless my co-worker Allan is nearby, because I often poach some of his excellent Arabic tea.

Once, completely exhausted by lunch in hot weather, I collapsed in my truck and the workers turned me in to the boss. Vas sleeping, as if! I was meditating. Incredibly, this came up in my work performance review.

Not alone

And according to an article published in the Globe and Mail (“Eating lunch alone at work can have adverse effects“, Friday July 27, 2019) I have plenty of company. Almost half (42%) of working Canadians eat lunch alone every day.

Eating lunch alone isn’t really normal. It happens when people start working. Then, eating with colleagues seems like a gift we can’t afford to accept.

I find that as a supervisor in charge of field production, many workers don’t really want to spend an extra half hour with me. Unless, of course, it’s cold or rainy outside and my company truck is warm.

Adverse effects

I had no idea eating alone came with so many adverse effects. According to research mentioned in the article, “people who eat most meals alone may express feelings of loneliness and social isolation”. “Eating in solitude is more strongly associated with unhappiness than any single factor, other than having a mental illness.”

Benefits

There are many benefits to eating together and scoring free Arabic tea is just one of them. How about improved communication with co-workers, stronger relationships with co-workers, increased happiness, job satisfaction and greater productivity.

Considering the many benefits listed above, I think I will try to eat the odd lunch with our crews.

What happened when I tried organic birch water

By | health and safety, Reviews | No Comments

This blog post is proof that I will do anything to create new content, including the consumption of new products that may or may not be good for me. One such product is Sealand Birk’s new organic birch water imported with love from Denmark.

99 cents

I was cruising the snack aisles at London Drugs recently and my favourite coconut water wasn’t on sale. Then I saw the cool slim cardboard 250 mL cans of Sealand Birk’s organic birch water. It was on sale for 99 cents; regular price $2.99. I tested the original version but there are many other flavours: Elderflower, Ginger & Lime, Blueberry, Raspberry, Lemon/Mint and Rose. London Drugs only offered the original version.

 

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The Nordic birch forest trees get tapped in early spring when the sap starts running but before leaf-out happens.

This is what the Sealand Birk website says:

Discover the qualities and natural taste of delicious birch water, tapped from the tree. Sealand BIRK connects with your body and supplies not only great taste but also the true, organic sweetness of nature’s own hidden treasures.

Harvested from birch trees in Taiga forests of Finland and Lithuania. Birch water is a sweet, healthy and certified organic alternative to artificially sweetened beverages.

Low on Calories
Contains plenty of organic naturally occurring antioxidants, electrolytes, trace minerals, xylitol, fructose and vitamins that is easy for your body to absorb and enjoy. You benefit from nature itself.

Sweetened by Nature
The taste is fresh and you can experience it without any second thoughts: Sealand BIRK is naturally low on calories. The pure birch water is harvested in early spring at the perfect moment to maximize nutritious value. The taste is refreshing packed with nutrients and organically sweet.

Born on Organic
No preservatives, no additives. Sealand BIRK is born organic. There is no point in trying to improve on nature. Sealand BIRK is a new age beverage for the international consumer market

 

Vas survives

The first taste of the original version was interesting. It was like water with a hint of lemon. I wish I could describe it better but I’m a landscape blogger, not a food critic. The second can went down well and the next four were totally fine. At 99 cents per can it’s a steal but not at the regular $2.99. At that price I will buy coconut water again.

If you see Sealand Birk organic birch water on sale anywhere, give it a try. It’s an interesting drink.

Does your mosquito repellent actually work?

By | health and safety, Landscaping | No Comments

The headline above was the actual headline from an article published in the Globe and Mail on Monday, August 6, 2018. In it, writer Wency Leung reports on the results from a New Mexico State University study. But, first, a quick story.

Vas almost dies

The article above came out a few days after I almost died in the field while stump grinding. I was removing two tree stumps close to Kanaka Creek in Maple Ridge, British Columbia and I couldn’t believe the number of mosquitoes around me. I kept working but after a while, totally desperate, I called my boss to bring me repellent. Any repellent. I didn’t care. I was suffering.

Because I was alone with a rented stump grinder, I couldn’t really leave my work site. My boss eventually rescued me.

 

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This expensive gas station bottle saved me in the field.

 

 

The study

The study looked at all sorts of products from scented candles, skin patches, wearable devices to sprays containing essential oils. The result? Most of the products were useless except for the ones containing DEET and oil of lemon eucalyptus.

About mosquitoes

One of the study authors explains that “mosquitoes are attracted to the carbon dioxide we exhale, and to the molecules that are created when our skin bacteria break down components of our sweat.” When you stump grind for a few hours you generate a lot of sweat. That’s the way we like our employees to work.

“The insects have odour  receptors and they’re specialized in what they can smell.” The magic of DEET is that it “binds to specific odour  receptors of mosquitoes and over-activates them; and over-activation is as bad as blocking them completely.”

This is the key: “Without smell the insects  can’t switch from host-seeking to biting mode.” Aha.

According to the article, DEET has been used for over 70 years and is considered very safe.

Conclusion

Save your money and stay safe in the landscape by purchasing repellents containing DEET or oil of lemon eucalyptus. Next time I’m sent to work by Kanaka Creek I will be ready.

Mulch police

By | Mulch | No Comments

Sometimes strata council members can make your life very difficult. Just as you think your landscape maintenance program is on auto-pilot, things fall apart. One such case involves mulch.

The setting

Imagine a regular strata site with decent soil. Now, the landscape president decides to install a thin layer of reddish mulch in all edges, mainly by sidewalks. It sounds OK but there are problems with it.

One, the colour doesn’t match the dark site soil and, two, the layer is very thin and barely covers the edges. Now, how do we maintain the site without disturbing the mulch?

Freak out

I didn’t even know about the new mulch install until I substituted for our regular foreman. We did our regular clean-up blow until the strata president tracked me down and started fuming. Something about blowing too aggressively and not owning brooms. I was confused at first and then I clued in. And I knew that one day I would strike back with a blog post.

Procedure

Foul language and complaints shouldn’t be directed straight at the field workers. Everything should go through the strata management company. And yet, as a supervisor, I had to take the verbal abuse and calmly reply to a man who made a mistake with mulch.

Too thin

Dr. Linda Chalker-Scott informs us that a thin layer of mulch does nothing for weed suppression. If anything, a thin layer of mulch encourages weed growth by conserving moisture and allowing enough light to reach the weeds. You can either install several inches of mulch or not do it at all. As it is, you’re making it nice and cozy for weeds to grow.

Colour mismatch

Since only the edges got a sprinkle of red mulch, there is noticeable colour mismatch which I find annoying. But again, the strata member is in charge and he did the work himself.

Maintenance

The thin application of red mulch makes maintenance work extremely difficult. For example, there are Spirea japonica shrubs by the sidewalk and they have to be sheared to eliminate sidewalk obstruction. Now, before any shearing happens we have to put tarps down otherwise any debris removal would also risk removing more red mulch. This would inevitably expose the workers to the strata member’s colourful vocabulary.

The fall was an absolute nightmare. Normally backpack blowers would blow out leaves from the building and onto the curb lawns but not here. Here there was great risk of removing the eleven red chips remaining by the strata member’s sidewalk. (I’m kidding.) We literally had to rake out the leaves around his unit. Otherwise he’d bury us in expletives.

Lessons

  1. Strata members can make your life difficult.
  2. Verbal abuse isn’t OK.
  3. Put down several inches of mulch or don’t do it at all.
  4. Thin layers of mulch actually encourage weed growth.