It’s no wonder that even the most serious institutions take a light-hearted approach to World Monkey Day. A 2014 National Geographic article in celebration of World Monkey Day included a collection of 16 super-cute and quite hilarious photos of monkeys in the wild.
In previous Monkey Day greetings, the Greenpeace website proclaimed, “Monkey Day is the perfect time to swing into action and help protect primate habitat by becoming a forest defender.” Greenpeace also noted that, “it’s the one day where monkey business is enthusiastically encouraged!” A 2016 article in the Washington Post gave the following advice on how to celebrate World Monkey Day:
Learn something about these adorable and highly intelligent primates. Or you could use this day to act like a monkey - but we must warn you that, even on this day, jumping on the bed is a risky business.
Monkeys have also permeated the English language with a monkey troop of fun and funny expressions. Sometimes I don’t even realize I’m using monkey expressions. I suppose they’re so common that for me, well, monkey see, monkey do.
Which reminds me, we’re going on a family ski-road trip to the Canadian Rocky Mountains in a few days and I need to have my grease monkey check out our car before we leave. Whenever I bring my car in he’s on it like stink on a monkey. I’m always happy to pay a little extra for a good mechanic. As I wise man once said - if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. The last thing we need is to have our car break down in a blizzard on a mountain highway where it’ll be cold enough to freeze the tail off a brass monkey. But before we go I’m determined to get all my Christmas GlassSipper glass straw orders out to you. Nothing personal, but it’ll sure be great to get that monkey off my back.
What I most look forward to about our family ski road trip, even more than the skiing, is the family time together. Now that my two sons are older teenagers they’re getting along much better and, thankfully, I won't need to play monkey in the middle quite as much. When the boys were younger they would always be making a monkey out of each other and constantly getting each other’s monkey up. Now, I’m sure they’ll have no time to monkey around in the back seat. They’ll be too busy watching all the movies and TV series they’ve downloaded onto their computers, including Monkey Business by the Marx Brothers, 12 Monkeys with Brad Pitt and, of course, all 58 episodes of The Monkees. I, for one, also look forward to some quiet time on those particularly snowy days when my boys are off skiing and I can curl up in front of the fire and catch up on my reading; first on my list is Monkey Beach by BC indigenous writer Eden Robinson.
Actually, my biggest concerns about the ski road trip are the roads themselves. As you probably know, heavy rains washed out the main highways in the BC interior in mid-November and are still limited to essential traffic. That could throw a monkey wrench into our road-trip plans and force us to travel through the US, adding hours of driving to our trip. Then again, that’s something that we have no control over so there’s no point in getting all stressed out like a monkey on a stick. I’m hoping that the BC highways are fully open by the time we head out, but I’ll be monkey’s uncle if that actually happens.
Fortunately, my husband Fred has lots of experience with organizing all our road-trip gear and ski equipment and packing up the car. And I’m very happy to leave all that to him. After all, a monkey knows what tree to climb. Fred’s also responsible for putting together our road-trip song list. No doubt he’ll include all our family favourites:
Monkey Man by Toots and the Maytals
Punish The Monkey by Mark Knopfler
Part Man, Part Monkey by Bruce Springsteen
Leave My Monkey Alone by Warren Zevon
Monkey Man by the Rolling Stones
Shock The Monkey by Peter Gabriel
Too Much Monkey Business by Chuck Berry
also covered by the Beatles and Elvis
Tweeter And The Monkey Man by The Traveling Wilburys
Everyone’s Got Something To Hide Except For Me And My Monkey by the Beatles
and, of course, our all time favourite Hey Hey We’re The Monkees
All monkeying aside, it’s amazing how much monkeys have permeated our culture. I’m guessing it’s probably because humans and monkeys have so much in common. And because monkeys are so darn cute and entertaining. To celebrate our close cousins the monkeys on World Monkey Day we’ve got a lot to choose from, all the way from a bevy of English expressions, to music, literature, cinema, and television. No need to put on a monkey suit. Just grab your favourite monkey novel, put on your favourite monkey song and, most important of all, be sure to have more fun than a barrel full of monkeys (while sipping from your !).
The Christmas GlassSipper rush got me thinking about how the Christmas gift-giving tradition got started. Personally, being Jewish, I did not get Christmas gifts growing up, but I did get presents for Hanukkah which always roughly corresponds in timing with Christmas.
Turns out, the gift-giving tradition actually dates back before the beginnings of Christianity itself. In fact, it goes back almost to the events that led to the holiday of Hanukkah, when the ancient Jews rebelled against the Greek empire and restored Jewish sovereignty to the Land of Israel. When the Roman empire replaced the Greek empire, Roman traditions replaced those of the Greeks. Around 2000 years ago, citizens of ancient Rome exchanged gifts as part of the pagan winter festival of Saturnalia that honoured Saturn, the Roman god of agriculture. When the Roman Empire adopted Christianity, the newly-Christian Roman leaders hung on to a number of pagan festival practises including gift-giving to smooth the transition from the old pagan religions to the new Christian religion.
In 336 CE, the Church settled on December 25th as the birthday of Jesus and Christmas was born. The Church linked the continuing tradition of gift-giving to the Gospel story of the Magi, the Three Wise Men, travelling to Bethlehem where they gave gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to baby Jesus.
Around the same time, the Church also tied Christmas gift-giving to the story of a 4th century Greek monk by the name of Saint Nicholas who gave gifts of money to the poor. Christians revered Saint Nicholas for his kindness and as the protector of children. Over the centuries Saint Nicholas became particularly popular in Holland, and amongst the Dutch colonists of New Amsterdam, today’s New York City. Starting in19th century New York, the gift-giving Saint Nicholas, known in Dutch as Sint Nikolass, and whose nickname was Sinter Klaas, evolved into the gift-giving Santa Claus. By that time modest gift giving during the Christmas season had already been popular for centuries in Europe and North America, with gifts typically being homemade, such as baked treats, hand-carved wooden toys and needlework.
Also dating back centuries in Europe was the tradition of Jewish parents giving their children coins on Hanukkah called gelt, which is Yiddish for the word “money”. The custom continues today throughout the Jewish world, though today’s gelt is made of chocolate. The popular explanation for the origins of giving gelt during Hanukkah is that the coins represent the ancient Israeli coins minted by the newly independent Kingdom of Israel after the successful rebellion against the Greek Empire that Hanukkah celebrates.
The 19th century, which saw Santa Claus emerge as a central figure in the celebration of Christmas, was also a period of industrialization and urbanization in the US. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, bands of rowdy young men took to partying in city streets. Political leaders at the time encouraged gift giving as a way of bringing people inside for more subdued Christmas celebrations. At the same time, parents saw indoor family-oriented celebrations along with gift-giving for children as a way of keeping their kids away from the corrupting influences of the city streets.
With industrialization also came mass-produced Christmas gifts, and the purchasing power to buy them, which also fueled Christmas gift-giving. At the same time North American Jewish families added gift-giving to the existing tradition of Hanukkah gelt, probably as a way of making Jewish children feel happy about Hanukkah rather than sad about missing out on Christmas.
I don’t mean to knock manufactured Christmas and Hanukkah gifts. After all, I am enjoying the new enameled cast-iron Dutch Oven that I bought myself for Hanukkah. However, I also love the fact that the GlassSipper glass drinking straws I hand-make in my own studio are a throwback to the pre-commercialized more personal form of holiday gift-giving.
]]>With the approach of Remembrance Day on November 11th I’ve been thinking a lot about memory. I’ve also been thinking about elephants, and their capacity to remember. Is it really true as the saying goes, that ‘elephants never forget’? Is there any basis to the expression, ‘she has the memory of an elephant’? Is the collective term “a memory of elephants” well earned? And, if so, what can we learn from elephants who never forget?
Two elephants at The Elephant Sanctuary in Hohenwald, Tennessee, give us an indication of the truth behind these expressions. A 2009 article in Scientific American reported that the Sanctuary in Tennessee added Shirley the elephant to its existing elephant population which already included Jenny. The pair immediately began closely examining each other. The sanctuary director Carol Buckley described the euphoric scene that quickly ensued. “Shirley started bellowing, and Jenny did, too. Both trunks were checking out each other’s scars. I’ve never seen anything that intense without it being aggression.” Turns out the ladies remembered each other from years before. Director Buckley dug into the history of the two elephants and discovered that Jenny and Shirley had briefly performed together 23 years earlier in the Carson & Barnes Circus.
Oxford trained Zoologist Dr. Iain Douglas-Hamilton, founder of the Save the Elephants organization in Nairobi, Kenya, also experienced the marvel of elephant memory. While doing research as a young scientist in Lake Manyara National Park in Tanzania Dr. Douglas-Hamilton befriended a female elephant who always joined him for his daily walks in the bush. Dr. Douglas-Hamilton then left Tanzania to complete his doctorate at Oxford. When Dr. Douglas-Hamilton returned to Lake Manyara National Park four years later the same female elephant immediately sidled up to him and strolled side by side with Dr. D-H as if he had never left.
This remarkable ability to remember has been key in the elephants’ capacity to survive and thrive throughout time. "They're long-lived animals,” says Dr. Douglas-Hamilton, “and memory would be a benefit to a long-lived animal, making it more adaptive to circumstances. Clearly if elephants experience extremes of climate and they can remember where the food is during a year (of drought), they can survive."
Research has shown this to be true. Elephants are matriarchal, which means that an oldest female is the leader of the memory. Scientists studied herds of elephants during a devastating drought in the Tarangire National Park in Tanzania in 1993. The previous severe drought in the park was 32-35 years earlier in 1958-1961. The scientist observed that the elephant herds with matriarchs between 38 and 45 years old left the desiccated areas and trekked long distances to locations with ample sources of water and food, and survived. The group with a younger matriarch remained in place and many died of thirst and starvation. Clearly, the older matriarchs remembered the earlier drought plus the routes to areas where they had found food and water three decades earlier.
Elephants in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya even remember which African tribes hunt elephants. In 2017, The Guardian newspaper reported on the research of Dr. Lucy Bates of the University of St. Andrews which demonstrated that elephants recall the smell, gender, and appearance of local tribesmen who present a threat. Two tribes live in the area - the Maasai and the Kamba. Maasai men are elephant hunters. Kamba men are not. The Maasai hunters also traditionally dress in red. Dr. Bates observed that the elephants will become visibly anxious and retreat when exposed to the appearance of red clothing, the smell of Maasai clothing, and the presence of Maasai men (as opposed to the presence of Maasai women or children). By contrast, the elephants are indifferent to similar stimulace from Kamba men.
Professor Karen McComb of the University of Sussex also did research at Amboseli National Park that showed that elephants likewise remember the sound of the Maasai language and retreat from the sound of recordings of Maasai men speaking. Professor McComb demonstrated that the elephants even remember the vocalizations of other elephants that present a threat. The elephants will back away or bunch up in a defensive configuration to protect themselves in reaction to recordings of the sounds of specific elephants which have attacked or threatened the group in the past.
Sadly, many of us in contemporary human society have lost interest in remembering our own history and the many valuable lessons which that history can teach us. Social media which dominates our lives seems geared to the here and now. For many of us today history seems so, well, old fashioned, and out of date. So irrelevant. Humans, however, just like elephants have survived and thrived by remembering the lessons of history and the contributions and sacrifices of those who came before us.
World War I ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month” of 1918 following the signing of the armistice agreement between Germany and the Allies earlier that morning. Remembrance Day evolved out of Armistice Day which was first observed on the grounds of Buckingham palace one year later on November 11, 1919, and then became an annual event throughout the Commonwealth. In 1931 Canada’s Parliament officially changed the name to Remembrance Day which is a day of, “remembrance for the men and women who have served and continue to serve our country during times of war, conflict and peace.”
The freedom that these men and women sacrificed and fought for is a fragile thing; both the physical freedom we enjoy, and the freedom of thought and expression. The starting point of our obligation to protect these freedoms is faithfulness to the memory of those who came before us, especially those in our defence forces who paid such a heavy price to ensure our freedoms today. And on this count we can learn another lesson from our elephant friends. In the words of the pachyderm philosopher Horton, “I meant what I said and I said what I meant. An elephant’s faithful one-hundred percent.” Upon reflecting on the memory of elephants and on the meaning and importance of Remembrance Day, I don’t think I’ll ever look at my GlassSipper elephant drinking straws in quite the same way.
]]>With International Sloth Day 2021 fast approaching on Wednesday October 20, 2021, I have to admit that until a few years ago, I had a rather negative view of sloths. Something, I’m guessing, that I shared with many of you. When I started making GlassSipper reusable drinking straw critters it never occurred to me that I’d ever end up making sloth GlassSippers. For those of us not so familiar with sloths. I associated them with laziness and apathy, something to avoid rather than put on a GlassSipper.
This negative portrayal of sloth, which no doubt coloured my view of the critters, has ancient roots. In fact, sloth is one of the Seven Deadly Sins, which dates back to a list composed by a fourth-century Christian monk by the name of Evagrius Ponticus (345-399 C.E.), also known to his close friends as “Evagrius the Solitary”. Evagrius’ list actually had 8 entries, which Pope Gregory subsequently pared down to seven in 590 C.E. Centuries later the theologian and philosopher Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) further popularized the Seven Deadly Sins which, in addition to sloth, include pride, lust, gluttony, greed, wrath, and envy.
Sloth, and the other six deadly sins, were more recently featured in the 1995 film “Se7en” starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Keven Spacey. I won’t go into the details of how the movie portrayed sloth, but suffice it to say that it was not pretty.
So it came as a surprise to me a few years back when a customer at the annual “Circle Craft” craft show in Vancouver asked if I had a sloth reusable glass drinking straw. I thought the request was a one-off that would be the first and last time I ever heard about the idea of sloths on a glass drinking straw. Instead, however, that request was the beginning of a steady flow of sloth glass drinking straw inquiries. My curiosity aroused, I started looking at sloth images online and quickly understood the appeal. Sloths are pretty much the cutest critters on the planet. They also exude a strikingly human vibe.
And in a society that likes to chill out, sloths are the poster child for a laid-back carefree lifestyle. In the wild sloths sleep up to 20 hours per day due to their low-nutrition leafy diet and their exceptionally low metabolic rate. In fact, sloths have the slowest metabolic rate of all non-hibernating mammals. It takes a sloth a month to digest a meal. Sloths move all of 38 meters in an entire day as they inch along the treetops, grazing on leaves as they go. That works out to about .002 kilometers an hour which, not surprisingly, gives sloths the title as the world’s slowest mammals. So slow and sedentary that green algae actually grows on their fur. Which is actually a good thing since the green coat helps camouflage sloths in their rainforest home.
Given that sloths spend 90% of their lives hanging upside down it’s not surprising that they cover so little ground. Their distinctively long hooked bony claws are particularly well suited to life hanging upside down. Another key adaptation that permits sloths to live upside down are internal organs that are attached to their rib cage. Consequently, a sloth’s organs do not weigh down on its lungs and prevent breathing.
In truth, however, sloths are not lazy. They are just slow. And Stealthy. Sloths have been around for over 60 million years, and being slow has proven to be an extremely successful survival strategy. The sloth’s main predators are large predatory cats, birds and snakes such as jaguars, eagles and anacondas which scope out their prey visually. Slow moving sloths just blend into the background.
Strangely enough, sloths are most vulnerable to predators when they poop. For reasons that have baffled scientists, sloths always climb down to the ground to poop, unlike other tree dwelling species that just let fly from on high. Over half of all sloth fatalities in the wild occur when predators attack sloths while pooping. Fortunately for sloths, their slow metabolism means that they only poop (and pee) once a week. But as you can imagine, when they do finally poop it’s quite the event. Sloths can droop a third of their weight during a single squat.
But poop aside, why all of a sudden the tsunami in the popularity of sloths? And, I should add, in the growing demand for GlassSipper sloth reusable glass drinking straws? Well, it turns out there are a few very specific reasons for the surge in popularity of sloths in the new millenium. First, sloths have been recently featured as loveable and huggable characters in popular animated movies, including Sid in Ice Age (2002) and Flash in Zootopia (2016).
Second, sloths have faces that seem to blend human features and expressions with those of a teddy bear, which are particularly well suited to meme-ification on social media. The most famous sloth meme is Astronaut Sloth, aka Space Sloth and Sloth on the Moon, which digital artist Pedro Dionisio created and uploaded on January 17, 2012. To create Astronaut Sloth, Dionisio photoshopped a sloth’s head onto the image of an astronaut. The meme spread like wildfire on sites such as Tumblr and Reddit. Astronaut Sloth is now widely available on posters, T-shirts, key chains, coffee mugs, and even cuff-links.
And the third specific reason for the dramatic uptick in sloth popularity was an event that occurred just a couple of weeks after the birth of Astronaut Sloth. Sloth-loving actress Kristen Bell appeared on The Ellen Show with Ellen DeGeneres and brought along a video of her extreme emotional reaction to a home visit by a sloth arranged by her husband as a 31st birthday present. On January 30, 2012, Ms. DeGeneres posted the video on her YouTube page and it instantly went viral with more than 30 million views.
These circumstances combined to create a huge presence of sloths in web culture. Sadly, the ensuing popularity of sloths has also turned into a curse for real live sloths. Now, every year poachers capture hundreds of sloths to be used as selfie photo props for tourists throughout sloth habitats in Central and South America. There’s actually a name for this phenomenon - the “photo-prop trade.” According to the environmental organization World Animal Protection, 70% of the selfie photographs that appear on Instagram are with sloths.
The sloths’ docile nature makes it easy to exploit the poor animals for the entertainment of tourists. In many cases the sloths are passed from person to person for hours of selfies. Well-meaning tourists may think that the sloths are actually enjoying the experience. They don’t - wild sloths do not like being held or petted at all. The facial structure of a sloth creates the false appearance that the sloth is smiling, even when they are experiencing pain and anxiety. In fact, for creatures that are accustomed to the solitary quiet and calm of jungle treetops, the photo-prop process causes considerable discomfortant, fear and stress. And stress often proves fatal to sloths. The negative impact of being abused as a photo prop shortens the lifespan of a sloth dramatically. In their natural habitat sloths commonly live from 20 to 30 years. Many sloths captured and used for sloth selfies die within months, if not weeks.
Nevertheless …. I don’t know about you, but I darn will intend to take a selfie with my favourite sloth. … A GlassSipper sloth, that is! And I plan to upload and share my selfie as a sloth-friendly way to celebrate International Sloth Day 2021, and to encourage other sloth lovers to leave real live sloths alone in the peace and quiet of their treetop jungle homes.
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Wow, how time flies! This Friday, October 8th, is World Octopus Day 2021. It seems like just yesterday that it was World Octopus Day 2020. And I haven’t even started all my celebration prep. First and foremost, of course, I’ll need to replenish my stock of reusable GlassSipper octopus glass drinking straws in anticipation of the usual holiday rush.
When you’ve ordered your GlassSipper octopus drinking straws in celebration of previous World Octopus Days, you may have noticed that my GlassSipper octopuses are not entirely anatomically correct. Yes, it is true, my GlassSipper octopuses have googly eyes, and real live Octopuses do not. GlassSipper octopus eyes are also positioned mid-body, while real live octopus eyes are just above the tops of their legs. Oh, and yes, my GlassSipper octopuses have six legs whereas real live octopuses have eight.
Why, you may ask, is that so? Well, to begin with GlassSipper octopuses have googly eyes because that’s the signature feature of GlassSipper critters. That’s what makes GlassSipper critters so goldarned cute and lovable. And real live octopus eyes are next to the tops of their legs, not mid-body, because a real live octopus’ head is actually located right at the top of their legs, with the sack-like body called a “mantle” extending back behind the head. Kind of like a long chef’s hat.
And the six legs? I guess you could say that’s a little bit of artistic license. Originally when I started making octopus reusable glass drinking straws I included all eight legs. But unlike the expansive ocean where an octopus can comfortably stretch out its legs, the surface-width of a glass drinking straw is rather narrow. And my poor eight-legged GlassSipper octopuses seemed a little cramped. So I reduced the number of legs by two and my octopuses happily stretched out much more comfortably.
On the left is one of my very first octopuses. On the right is what it has evolved to after seven years of making them. I think I've improved!
Octopus GlassSippers were among the first reusable glass drinking straw designs that I ever made, all the way back in 2014 when I founded GlassSipper. So naturally octopuses were among my original best sellers. However, even as I added more and more critters to the GlassSipper menagerie, octopuses remained among the top choices of GlassSipper lovers. That’s why octopuses have always been part of my Best Seller Set, along with turtles, frogs, and geckos.
So with World Octopus Day 2021 nearly upon us, I began to ponder what makes octopuses so popular. And I’ve come up with a theory: People love octopuses because we intuitively sense that octopuses are so much like us.
Octopuses are one of the world’s great survivors. Octopuses have been around for more than 300 millions years. Even before the first dinosaurs. And one of the main reasons that octopuses have been around so long, and have outlived so many other species, is that octopuses are super intelligent. Octopuses are innately curious, learn from observation and experience, use their noggins to solve problems, have both short and long term memory, can navigate through complex mazes, and even use tools. Octopuses can easily open jars filled with food, and have been known to pop open a child-proof pill bottle to get at a snack, thereby outperforming many adult humans - including, on occasion, yours truly. Octopuses can also recognize human faces and bond with people.
So how clever are octopuses? Trainers at Kelly Tarltton’s Sea Life Aquarium in Auckland New Zealand have taught Rambo the rapier sharp octopus to take photos of visitors from inside her tank on a $300 Sony Cyber-shot TX30 waterproof digital camera. The aquarium charges $2 for each of Rambo’s photos, with the money helping to support the aquarium. https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/rambo-the-octopus-takes-photos-of-tourists-with-sony-camera-1.3030800
Octopus smarts also make them great escape artists. There are many instances of octopuses in aquariums escaping from their display tanks. In 2016 the New York Times profiled Inky the Octopus, who escaped from the National Aquarium of New Zealand in Napier by dislodging the lid of his tank at night, oozing up and out of the enclosure, dropping to the ground, gliding across the aquarium floor, then squeezing into a drainpipe and dropping 164 feet to the ocean and freedom. An octopus at a British aquarium was a repeat offender who exited his tank every night, slid across the floor to a nearby tank where he wolfed down the fish, then returned to his own tank, to relax and digest his meal.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/14/world/asia/inky-octopus-new-zealand-aquarium.html
Like most of us at times, octopuses are homebodies, spending much of their time snuggled into their dens. Octopus dens are usually holes and crevices in rocks and coral, although octopuses even curl up in discarded metal and plastic objects. I suppose that octopuses, like you and me, just can’t stand single-use disposable items.
Like people, octopuses come in a wide variety of colours, sizes, and shapes. Although the average octopus is around 45 - 60 pounds, the Giant Pacific Octopus, found along the entire west coast of North America, weighs around 110 pounds (but can grow to over 600 pounds), with a 16 foot wing-span (that sometimes reaches 30 feet). Octopuses have adapted to life in every ocean, temperature, and depth, from coastal shallows to sea beds 14,000 feet below the surface (that’s more than 4 km down!).
Octopuses are the ultimate shape-shifters and can change colours, textures, and patterns to stand out in a crowd, which is handy for startling or confusing predators, or blend into the background to hide in plain view from attackers or others they would prefer to avoid. Octopuses would be great as guests at your upcoming Halloween costume party, masquerading as billowing seaweed, ragged rock outcroppings and gnarly coral branches.
Like many of us, octopuses love to eat crabs. A pile of empty crab shells on the seafloor is a telltale sign that there’s an octopus in the neighbourhood. By the way, octopuses have a hard beak and powerful jaws which they use to pierce the shells of crabs and other crustaceans they feed on. Octopuses also use their beaks to inject venom to ward off predators. But don’t worry if you encounter an octopus while snorkelling or diving. They’re not at all aggressive, and only use their venom if attacked. Octopuses prefer just to lay low or bug out.
Octopus beaks play a role in other aspects of octopus life. The males of most octopus species practise safe sex by keeping their distance during mating due to the female tendency of eating any lovers who get too close. Pacific Striped Octopus couples, by contrast, join legs, sucker to sucker and beak to beak in a shaking frenzy that marine biologists call “rough sex.”
In addition to their multi-purpose beaks, there are a few other important differences between octopuses and humans. For example, octopuses have three hearts; one heart pumps blood to the legs and body, while the other two hearts work exclusively to supply blood to the gills. Octopus blood is also blue because octopus blood is copper-based (rather than iron-based in the case of us red-blood humans) which is more efficient in moving oxygen at low temperatures. Octopuses also can regrow lost legs.
And unlike humans, octopus do not use their legs for swimming. Instead, octopuses suck water into their mantle, then forcefully contract their mantle muscles, blasting the water out through a narrow tube called a siphon, propelling themselves forward. The octopus steers by pointing its siphon in the opposite direction to the one they wish to travel. Although octopuses can jet quickly through the water, they prefer to slowly crawl on their tentacles along the sea bed.
Fortunately, the genial octopus is not currently considered endangered. However, since octopuses are solitary critters adept at keeping a low profile in their gardens beneath the sea, it is impossible to ascertain their actual numbers.
But for now, I’ll do my best to keep octopus numbers high in the lead up to World Octopus Day 2021 by planting myself in front of my torch and creating as many new GlassSipper octopuses as time allows.
Happy World Octopus Day 2021!
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Often I create a new critter-glass-drinking-straw when more and more of you start asking for a particular critter. However, that’s not exactly how I started making koalas. Instead, koala glass drinking straws came about as a result of a family tradition that is entirely unconnected with koalas, straws, glass art, or the environment.
Friday evening is the beginning of Shabbat, also known as the Jewish Sabbath, which starts just before sunset on Fridays and continues to just after sunset on Saturdays. Jewish days all begin and end at these times, rather than at midnight according to the regular calendar. Friday evening Shabbat dinner is our most important family time. We often invite extended family and friends, and sometimes even strangers, to join us. During dessert we go around the table and, one at a time, say four things - our name, a nickname, the highlight of the past week, and the thing we are most looking forward to in the coming week. Our oldest son Ezra (now 19) always explains this custom to newcomers and will sometimes throw in a fifth thing that is always something different. It could be a favourite song, a fondest memory from a family trip or, in this particular case, a favourite animal.
One of our guests that Shabbat supper was an old friend who said her favourite animal was the koala. Why? Because they’re the cutest! That’s what got me started on koalas. And what a natural choice for GlassSipper. Although I didn’t realize it when I founded the GlassSipper company back in 2014, “cute” is what defines GlassSipper reusable glass drinking straws. And the word that best defines koalas is, you guessed it, “cute”. GlassSippers and koalas are a match made in cute heaven.
What’s the “acute” angle that draws us to koalas? (Thanks to my younger son Adin for the acute angle pun.) What makes koalas so cute? I think it’s that koalas seem so soft and huggable, with their oversized fluffy ears, button eyes, oblong bulbus black nose, teddy bear face, and rolly-polly stuffy-sized body. Who can resist the sight of a young koala (called a joey) piggybacking on its mother? Or the image of a koala hugging a Eucalyptus tree?
Actually, koalas have a very practical reason for hugging Eucalyptus trees. Koalas are native to eastern Australia and spend virtually their entire lives hugging Eucalyptus trees, and subsisting entirely on Eucalyptus leaves. Eucalyptus leaves, however, have very limited nutritional value. Which means that koalas have very little energy for much of anything beyond eating and, consequently, spend most of their lives asleep. Around 18-20 hours a day to be exact. So koalas spent all that time hugging trees to keep from toppling down while asleep. The only time koalas leave their tree is to find another tree with more leaves to eat.
Koalas also hug the Eucalyptus tree to keep cool - a Eucalyptus tree trunk is on average 7 degrees cooler than the surrounding air. Koalas rarely even climb down for water since their digestive system extracts their water requirements directly from the Eucalyptus leaves themselves. In fact, koalas get their name from the fact that they rarely drink water. “Koala” means “no water” in the language of one Australian aboriginal tribe.
But you shouldn’t assume that just because koalas are cute that they are a bunch of wimps. When thieves tried to steal a koala from the Rockhampton Zoo in Queensland in 2006, the little fur-ball fought back so aggressively that the thieves ran off - and stole a more gentle full-sized crocodile instead! Zoo keeper Will Kemp reported that the koala, “scratched the shit out of them.”
Speaking of which, koalas are part of a select family of animals including elephants, pandas, and hippos, that eat their mother’s poop. Apart from being low in energy and nutritional value, Eucalyptus leaves are also extremely fibrous and highly toxic. Koalas need very specific bacteria in their intestines to digest the leaves. Joeys, however, are born with sterile intestines. By eating their mother’s poop, young koalas ingest the bacteria necessary to survive on Eucalyptus leaves. So I guess we know what to do if we’re ever stranded in the Australian outback with nothing to eat except Eucalyptus leaves. Just kidding - do not try this at home. By the way, joeys are unlikely to go hungry since adult koalas poop up to 150 times a day.
Once joeys have had their fill of poop at around 6 months of age they shift their diet to Eucalyptus leaves with a vengeance. I mean, after a diet of poop wouldn’t you? Your average 25 pound adult male koala can eat up to 2 pounds of Eucalyptus leaves a day. Ironically, however, although Eucalyptus leaves are the sole source of sustenance for adult koalas, these very same Eucalyptus leaves are also the cause of their demise. The abrasive leaves slowly grind away the koala’s teeth, and toothless old koalas eventually starve to death.
Just a few words about Save the Koala Month, and Save the Koala Day, before I sign off. After the beginning of the English settlement of Australia in 1878 with the arrival for the first 850 convicts, the English began hunting koalas for their pelts which they used as currency in the new colony. By the 1930s, when Australians killed koalas for sport and pelts, the hunters reduced koala numbers to the edge of extinction. So in the 1930s the Australian government declared koalas a “protected species.” Currently, koalas are considered “vulnerable” with somewhere between 43,000 and 80,000 remaining in the wild. With koalas no longer being hunted in significant numbers, and few natural predators (dingoes, pythons and large birds of prey), the koala’s greatest threat is deforestation, which has resulted in the loss of 80% of Australia’s forest. Each koala needs about 100 trees to survive, so as the forests disappear so too do the koalas. Save the Koala Month and Save the Koala Day is dedicated to raising awareness and protecting the koalas’ habitat and, thereby, protecting the koalas themselves.
So let’s dedicate some time during Save the Koala Month to think about what we can do to help preserve animal habitats in Australia, around the world, and in our own backyards. And let’s celebrate the oh-so-cute koala. In fact, I think I’m going to grab one of my GlassSipper koala reusable glass drinking straws and blend myself up a tall green smoothie. You should too! Just go easy on the Eucalyptus leaves.
One of the ways I have tried to stay connected with the GlassSipper community during the Covid-19 nightmare is through my action-packed live Instagram video sessions, broadcast direct from my glass studio. During each live event, I fire up my torch and demonstrate how I create my GlassSipper reusable drinking straw designs - particularly my menagerie of GlassSipper critters. At the same time I use the opportunity to bring you all up to date on GlassSipper developments and goings on in my life that I think may be of interest.
Another great thing about Instagram (aka “IG”, “Insta” and “the gram”) is the opportunity for real-time dialogue in which participants share messages with me and each other throughout the broadcast. During a live post last November I asked my viewers to suggest new critters for me to add to the GlassSipper family. Shout-out to Elana for recommending that I create a llama reusable glass drinking straw.
Sometimes it takes me weeks of frustration and buckets of failed attempts before I eventually perfect new designs (I’m thinking about butterflies, hummingbirds, and sharks), and sometimes it happens so quickly and naturally that it feels like I’ve been making the new critter all my life. For reasons that are a mystery to me the llama fell into the latter category. Within days of Elana’s suggestion I had designed my new GlassSipper llama, photographed the image, and posted the llama glass drinking straw on my website. Although not my number one seller (yet), llama GlassSippers soon became a favorite among a growing group of dedicated llama lovers. Perhaps it has something to do with the llama’s gentle reputation. Or its soft and cuddly coat. Or maybe it’s the dreamy eyes.
It’s particularly fitting that we introduced the GlassSipper llama reusable glass drinking straw during these Covid times. It turns out that the loveable llama is playing a key role in the development of a treatment for coronavirus. Recently, a team of Israeli and American scientists have developed a “nanobody” cocktail that could neutralize the coronavirus - including the Delta variation.
Llamas and other members of the camel family produce tiny disease-fighting antibodies called nanobodies that are more effective in attacking and subduing the Covid-19 virus than the larger antibodies produced by humans. An antibody is a protein produced by the immune system which identifies and neutralizes microscopic foreign invaders such as bacteria and viruses. Antibodies are the immune system's natural defence against disease. When extracted from blood, antibodies can be used to develop treatments and vaccines.
Llama immune systems produce two different types of antibodies when a llama is sick. The first is larger and similar to the antibodies produced by humans. The second type of llama antibodies are the much smaller nanobodies, which humans do not produce. The small size of llama nanobodies allows them to fit into pockets on the surface of viral proteins (such as Covid-19) that larger human antibodies cannot squeeze into. By attaching to the surface of the Covid-19 virus, the nanobodies create a barrier around the virus that prevents the virus from binding to healthy cells. In so doing the llama nanobodies prevent the onset or spread of the disease.
According to Dr. Dina Schneidman-Duhovy of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Israel, “The antibodies stick to the virus and just don’t come off, almost acting like glue. The antibodies are also very specific, targeting the novel coronavirus very precisely.”
Llama nanobodies are more stable than human antibodies (nanobodies can survive for six weeks at room temperature), are easier to modify, and less expensive to convert into medications than those developed from human antibodies.
As part of their research, the scientists vaccinated a llama with the coronavirus.Two months later, the llama produced nanobodies against Covid-19 that neutralized the virus. The scientist then extracted the nanobodies and replicated them. The scientists hope that after future research and refinement they will be able to replicate the nanobodies on a massive scale for use on coronavirus patients.
These nanobodies, being smaller than human antibodies, can be turned into an aerosol spray that patients inhale directly into their lungs from a simple inhaler. This makes nanobody-based treatment less expensive and much easier to administer than a vaccine that is injected into the bloodstream.
A nanobody-based aerosol treatment goes to work almost immediately, by contrast with vaccines which can take up to a month or two before they provide meaningful protection. The antibody treatment can also be used to treat somebody who is already sick by lessening the severity of the disease.
According to Dr. Dina Schneidman-Duhovy, ”If we can produce an innovative drug through the (llama nanobody) cocktail, it will be a life-saving treatment - if given early in the disease.” Dr. Schneidman-Duhovy also expects that the new drug will be able to be used preventatively for individuals exposed to a person with coronavirus.
Thankfully, effective vaccines have been widely available for months. Nanobody research is continuing with the hopes of developing effective nanobody treatments for those who have already contracted the virus. Only time - and further research - will tell whether nanobodies will form the basis for effective treatments against Covid-19. And if they do, it’ll be thanks in large part to our friend the llama.
Until then, I will raise my glass - together with my GlassSipper llama reusable glass drinking straw - in thanks that my entire family and I have been fully vaccinated.
]]>The loveable bumble bee and I go all the way back to the beginnings of GlassSipper in 2014. Yet it was only recently that I discovered that the bumble bee and the honey bee are two distinct and different branches of the bee family. Like reusable GlassSipper bees, bumble bees are robust and round, striped in black and yellow, and have near-transparent wings. But unlike GlassSipper bees, bumble bees are also hairy. Honey bees, by contrast, are slender with a pointed abdomen, hairless, primarily black, with translucent wings. Despite the many fine qualities of honey bees, I’m guessing that most of you would agree with me that bumble bees win the award for cuteness hands down.
The GlassSipper bumble bee was one of my first critter designs, and has continued to be one of the top choices of GlassSipper reusable glass drinking straw lovers year in and year out.
In fact, we at GlassSipper love bees so much that the bumble bee came within a bee-hair’s width of being part of the GlassSipper logo. In the end, however, despite our love affair with the bee, we opted for absolute simplicity with our logo. Although the bee didn’t make it onto our logo, thanks to your support we’re thrilled to be steadily filling the world with GlassSipper bee reusable glass drinking straws.
Sadly, in many parts of the world real bee numbers have been dropping precipitously. Nobody really knows with certainty why bee populations are declining. The drop in bee populations likely has a number of causes. Scientific research points to several factors, possibly in combination, including habitat loss, parasites, disease, poor nutrition, and pesticides.
Parasites may well be the primary threat to bees, the most dangerous of which is a mite with the very apt name of Varroa Destructor. Varroa Destructor mites transmit “Acute Bee Paralysis Virus” and “Deformed Wing Virus” which, not surprisingly given the names, prevent bees from being able to fly. Human agricultural practices such as monoculture farming can cause malnutrition in bees. Monoculture farming is the practise of growing a single crop on gargantuan tracts of land. This limits the bees’ consumption to one type of pollen and thereby prevents bees from obtaining a well-balanced diet. Imagine what would happen to our own health if we were limited to one food item such as corn. Or soy. Or strawberries. I’m guessing the results would not be pretty. Malnourished bees are vulnerable to parasites, disease, and pesticides. Pesticides contribute to the decline of bee populations by interfering with bee communication and navigation, and by compromising their immune systems.
The term “Colony Collapse Disorder” or “CCD” is often mistakenly used as a blanket term to describe declining bee populations. CCD, while dramatic when it does occur, is not a major reason for overall declining numbers, and is less common today than it was a decade ago. CCD is a poorly understood phenomenon in which a hive empties out virtually overnight, leaving behind a healthy - though no doubt lonely - queen, larvae, and full honey stores. There are no dead bees In collapsed hives. In other words, the population seems to just up and leave. And the reason remains a mystery.
While the exact cause of declining bee numbers is still not fully understood, there is little doubt of the potential impact, not just for the honey industry, but for all of us. Fully one third of the human food chain is reliant on bees. Production of fruit, vegetables and nuts is dependent on pollination by bees.
We owe thanks to bees not only for their key role in human food production. Honey itself offers a number of health benefits. Antioxidants in honey have been linked to lowering the risk of strokes, heart attacks, and some forms of cancer. Honey has also been used for millennia for healing burns and wounds, dating all the way back to Ancient Egypt. Research shows honey acts as an anti-inflammatory and antibacterial balm that also nourishes the tissue around a wound.
Even bee stings offer potential health benefits. A toxin in bee venom called melittin may prevent HIV by poking holes into the virus' protective envelope. Bee sting venom can also reduce pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis and increase levels of an anti-inflammatory hormone called glucocorticoid. Finally, bees use a resin from poplar and evergreen trees called propolis to reinforce their hives, which has also been shown to relieve cold sores, canker sores, herpes, sore throats, cavities, and eczema.
So what can we do to help bees who help us in so many important ways? First and foremost, always keep in mind that bees love and need flowers. Lots and lots of them.
We can use our gardens, planter boxes, and window sills to plant a wide variety of flowering trees and plants. We can extend the flowering season with plants that flower at different times of year. Here in Vancouver our crocuses often bloom in January and February, so with a little effort we should be able to keep our bees happy nearly year round. Lavender, borage and marjoram are especially effective in attracting bees. Bees also love primrose, buddleia, and marigolds. And we can share with family and friends all that we’ve learned about how vital bees are to our lives, and we can encourage them to go wild planting flowering trees and plants as well.
As for me, leading up to World Honey Bee Day on August 21, 2021, I intend to do my part to up the world bee population, and to honour the humble and hard-working bee, by getting down on my bee’s-knees and doing some serious flower planting. Then, I plan to make a bee-line to my torch and get busy-as-a-bee adding to the world’s population of GlassSipper reusable glass bee drinking straws. And when I’m done, I’m going to make my favourite fruit smoothie, plop a GlassSipper bee straw in my glass and relax out on my bee-utiful back balcony. Who knows, maybe a few real live bees will bee out there celebrating with me.
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Pacific Rim National Park and the nearby towns of Tofino and Uclulet are the perfect eco-friendly vacation destination for active families and outdoor adventurers. The beaches along the 40 km stretch of Pacific coastline between Uclulet to the south and Tofino to the north are Canada’s only major surfing hub. Since my husband Fred and teenage sons Ezra and Adin caught the surfing bug several years ago we’ve been spending a week every summer tenting at one of the area’s campgrounds.
This year we made our annual pilgrimage at the end of June, one week before “Plastic Free July”. Happily, camping for us has become pretty plastic-free. Over time we’ve assembled a complete set of reusable cooking and eating utensils. No single-use products for us! And when we camp, we always bring along earth-safe biodegradable soap for washing dishes. I recommend an all-in-one biodegradable soap that doubles as a body wash for showering and laundry soap. Our Coleman stove and lantern have refillable fuel tanks, which means they don’t utilize those unsightly single-use propane canisters that often litter parks and beaches. Even, the lighter we use to light our stove, lantern and campfire is refillable.
Naturally, we always bring along a set of our own GlassSipper reusable glass drinking straws for when we go out for shakes, smoothies, and hot beverages at Tofino’s many great coffee shops such as Tofino Coffee Roasting Co (605 Gibson St), Tofitian Cafe (1180 Pacific Rim Hwy) and the Rino Coffee House (430 Campbell St). If we ever run short on our GlassSippers - which admittedly is pretty unlikely - we can always pick up more locally at the Merge Artisan Collective Shop in Tofino at 305-B Campbell Street, and in Ucluelet at the aquarium gift shop. We also bring along our GlassSipper travel cases and pouches to keep our straws clean and safe.
Many cafes, smoothie and ice cream shops in the area now offer paper and “compostable” straws, which are definitely much more eco-friendly than single-use-plastic straws. Nevertheless, we are happier with our GlassSippers which, unlike paper, do not collapse or disintegrate part way through your drink, or give your beverage a wet-paper taste. And, remember - “compostable” does not mean biodegradable. Compostable straws do not biodegrade on their own. Tossed in a garbage or a recyclable bin, a compostable straw will remain intact much in the same way as a single-use-plastic straw, and cause much the same damage to the environment. Compostable straws will only degrade in an industrial composter. Sadly, few actually make it all the way to an industrial composter.
We’ve learned the hard way that campsites during the summer can be almost impossible to come by around Tofino. The first year we tried to get a campsite in the area we attempted to book one of the 94 campsites at the spectacular Green Point Campground in Pacific Rim National Park, set on a bluff overlooking Long Beach (which at 14+ km long, deserves its name). For $30 per family, the sites are also a great bargain. Sadly, nothing was available. Not just for the week of our trip. There was nothing for the entire summer! Fortunately, we discovered the privately owned Long Beach Campground, with available sites for $50. Unfortunately, the campground’s name is its only close connection with Long Beach. Located almost 2 km away from the beach, the campground is right beside the airport and golf course. Still, we were happy to find a campsite anywhere in the area, and the campground was pleasant and relatively well-maintained, though a bit of a party destination, perhaps because it was the only place available at the last minute.
We’ve since learned that to book a campsite at Green Point Campground for dates during the summer one must go on the National Park website as soon as bookings open each year on January 2nd at 8:00 a.m. The first time we booked at Green Point Campground we went onto the website ahead of time to scout out the most desirable sites. You know, the ones that are far from the highway, with an ocean view, and close to the bathrooms and showers, but not too close. Prior to the start time all sites are marked by a small green circle, indicating that the particular site is available. We “cleverly” made up our list in order of preference and got online well before the 8:00 a.m. start time. Once the webpage opened up for bookings, however, the entire campground quickly shifted from green to red, as sites were snapped up before our eyes. Panicking, we immediately jettisoned our list and took whatever site we could get before there was nothing left. Sadly, no ocean view or proximity to the bathhouse. But at least we were far from the highway.
This year we tried out the new Surf Grove Campground which opened in 2020. Surf Grove is pricier than the rest but has excellent facilities (including WiFi, electricity, and water at the sites), is well run and maintained by a friendly staff and, best of all, perfectly located right on Cox Bay, which is the area’s most popular surfing beach. Our site was two minutes walk from the beach, which was amazing for the surfers in the family. With the beach steps away, there was no need to wait for stragglers. Whoever was ready could just walk off with his surfboard to the beach. And those who were done first could just walk back to the campsite. Another great feature is showers, hoses, and bathrooms right at the edge of the beach, and hot outdoor showers back at the bathhouse.
Surf Grove is also dog friendly, with green “degradable” doggie bag dispensers and a full array of recycling-garbage receptacles at key locations around the campground. While the boys were out carving waves and catching barrels, our Border Terrier “Hunter” and I would walk the endless beaches and rainforest paths. Be sure to keep a close watch on your dogs though! There are wolves in the area who have been known to brazenly snatch dogs on the beaches (usually in the early morning) and even on the bike path along the highway.
I love the fact that we can cook our own meals at the campgrounds. In preparation for your trips, I do a shop for produce just before leaving home, but also like to support local businesses by augmenting supplies at the well-stocked Tofino supermarket, the “Co-op Food Store” (you don’t need to be a member) at 140 First St (hours 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily), and the Common Loaf Bake Shop, 180 First St, where the peasant bread is usually eaten before we get it back to our campsite, so I have to buy two loaves. Friends and family are always thrilled when we bring back a loaf for them. The Common Loaf is also a regular destination for baked treats, hot chocolate, and a quick slice of pizza.
Our first supper was hot dogs and corn on the cob roasted over the open flame, and then variations of pasta with salad for the rest of the nights. Breakfast is burritos or eggs along with oatmeal enhanced with nuts, berries and granola. Lunches tend to be on-the-fly - usually pita with hummus, cheese on bagels, and cut up fresh veggies and fruit.
Once we finish setting up camp on the day we arrive, our next stop is always “Live to Surf” to obtain surf boards and wetsuits. Tofino’s first surf shop, Live to Surf (Est. 1984) is a great place to recycle and reuse … wetsuits. There is always a rack of second hand wetsuits. It’s a bit hit and miss in terms of sizes. But over the years my husband and boys have managed to find good fitting wetsuits for as little as $30, and no more than $120. With growing boys we’ve had to find “new” used wetsuits every year or two. This year we’ve also picked up an excellent hand-me-down surfboard from a friend who has moved up to the Okanagan, which has much to offer, though not a lot of surfing.
While my boys check out second-hand surfing gear, I dutifully (though not exactly happily) stand in line at the original iconic Tacofino food truck located in the parking lot right behind the surf shop for some pre-surf fish tacos and burritos. The lines during meal times at Tacofino are crazy, so we always try to time our visits for late-morning, mid-afternoon or late evening. Oh, and by the way, the food at Tacofino - at least at the original food truck behind the surf shop - is as good as its reputation.
While Fred and the boys surf, I never have a problem finding things to do. Apart from lots of walking with Hunter, I enjoy the chance to catch up on my reading and writing. Last year I took a whale watching tour. I even do some GlassSipper admin work on my iPad. Although I left my bike at home, next year we all plan to bring our bikes. The road between Ucluelet and Tofino is not at all bike-friendly, with narrow or non-existent shoulders and fast moving traffic. However, after years of construction, a world-class off-road bike path linking Tofino and Ucluelet is nearing completion and will be open by summer 2022 for sure. Once finished, the bike path will make getting anywhere in the area both eco-friendly and practical. You’ll be able to park your vehicle upon arrival and not get back in until your departure. You can even get a special attachment for cycling with a surfboard - or just carry the board under your arm like many intrepid local surfer-cyclists do. Part of the bike path parallels the highway, but many sections snake through the rainforest and run alongside the beaches.
Although we eat most of our meals at the campsite, we always try to have one supper at the fabulous Basic Goodness Pizza with its wood-burning oven. The restaurant is located at 151 Campbell St on the west side of the road near the entrance to Tofino. Basic Goodness does have regular hours, but do come early! The restaurant makes its dough fresh daily and shuts down once the dough runs out.
On this year’s trip we made a great new food discovery - the Surfside Grill take-out joint. You’ll never find it unless you know it’s there. Next door to the Surf Grove Campground is one of Tofino’s high-end beach-side resorts - Pacfic Sands. To get to the Surfside Grill, which is in the middle of Pacific Sands, you can either walk up from the beach, or drive in from the highway (and park in the Pacific Sands parking lot next to the surf shop) - but there are no signs at either point of access. The Surfside has an extensive burger and seafood menu with reasonable prices, and its own beautiful courtyard with picnic tables and outdoor fireplaces, and a pretty spectacular view of the ocean. Roasting marshmallows over the fireplaces is encouraged. And here’s another secret known only to locals (and all of us)! On Monday’s the Surfside offers a “local special” which is an excellent veggie burger and a generous portion of fries for $10. It’s not on the menu so just ask for the local special.
A second outstanding food discovery we made this time is the Cheesus Custom Sandwich food-truck located at the T-intersection where the highway ends and the roads to Ucluelet and Tofino split off in opposite directions. Despite the name, there are lots of meat, veggie and vegan options - all on foot-long rolls baked fresh daily. It’s the perfect stop for your hungry crew on the way in or out of town.
Thankfully, everyone in the family got what they needed to nourish their body, spirit, and stomach during our stay at Surf Grove Campground. We hope to return at the end of the summer for a multi-day ocean kayaking adventure in Clayoquot Sound, just north of Tofino. So will keep you posted!
]]>The GlassSipper manatee reusable glass straw is one of our own sentimental favourites. We are also proud to support the Save The Manatee Club based in Florida, a nonprofit organization devoted to protecting manatees and their aquatic habitat. Manatees are one of the truly good guys in the Animal Kingdom. Shy, family centred, often playful, and as cute as all get out with their hound-dog eyes, whiskered jowls, zaftig* bodies, and flat round tail. Though not GlassSipper’s number one seller - our turtle reusable glass straw takes that title - manatee straws are beloved by a devoted community of manatee lovers. Still, many GlassSipper fans have never even heard of manatees and encounter these gentle maritime giants for the first time on our website.
It wasn't that long ago that we too were completely unaware of the manatee. Our attachment to manatees began back in 2008 while on a family road trip to Florida when our sons were four and six years old. The first stop on our trip was Saint Augustine on the Atlantic coast of the state. Saint Augustine is the oldest city in the United States, founded in 1564 by Spanish explorers. Today, Saint Augustine has a beautifully restored historical quarter, fabulous beeches, and its famous Alligator Farm - which was the number one destination on our boys’ list of must-do things in town.
Ironically, we almost missed out on Saint Augustine and, as a consequence, would have remained unaware of manatees, perhaps even to this day. When we tried to book a room in Saint Augustine every hotel said the same thing - “Nothing available - it’s Bike Week.” We had visions of hundreds, maybe even a 1,000 or more, spandex-clad cyclists pedalling into Saint Augustine on their fancy light-as-a-feather carbon fibre 20-speed bicycles. About to give up, we finally got the last room in a motel a few blocks outside the historical district.
Driving into town we prepared to navigate through streets filled with bicycles. Strange … we hardly saw any bicycles at all. What we did see as we neared our hotel, however, were motorcycles. Dozens and dozens of motorcycles. Yamahas, Kawasakis and, of course, Harley-Davidsons. When we turned into the parking lot of our motel we saw rows of motorcycles stretching from one end of the lot to the other. And no spot for our car. We had stumbled into Daytona Beach Bike Week - one of the two largest gatherings of motorcycles in the world. Though centred in Daytona Beach, an hour south drive along Highway A1A, Bike Week had grown so large in recent years that it encompassed the Florida coast all the way to Saint Augustine.
The next morning I approached a young man in our parking lot polishing up the chrome on his BMW “bike”. “There must be at least 30 or 40,000 motorcycles here for Bike Week,” I remarked. He looked at me like I had just landed from another planet. “More like 400,000,” he chortled. Turns out that Bike week, which just celebrated its 79th year, annually attracts from 400,000 to 500,000 bikers to the area.
Every way we turned there were motorcycles and tattooed bikers. Keep in mind that this was before the days when even grannies and schoolkids proudly displayed their “rebel” tattoos. Even the Alligator Farm was overrun with bikers gawking at the albino alligators and 24 different species of crocodilians. We had to prop our boys on our shoulders for them to get a view over the leather-clad mob of the noon feeding frenzy at the Alligator Lagoon. And forget about the restaurants. There wasn’t a table to be had anywhere near the historical district or along the beaches.
So we started to ask the locals where we could get a meal that had kid-friendly wholesome food and good salads. A number of people recommended the Manatee Cafe, which was a 10 minute drive away from the tourist area. Strange name, we thought, but it seemed like our best bet for finding an available table and healthy food.
The Manatee Cafe was perfect. And not a bike in sight. Calm, welcoming, very local, with a menu featuring omelettes, waffles, burritos, sandwiches, salads, pizza, homemade cookies and pie - and a free table! While waiting for our order we examined the paintings and photographs of manatees which covered the light spa-green walls. The food was exactly what we hoped for and the Manatee Cafe became our go-to restaurant throughout our stay - and during our return visit two years later. It was also at the Manatee Cafe that we learned that manatees are Florida’s official state marine mammal.
Fast forward to February 2010. Our hometown Vancouver was hosting the Winter Olympics. As the crowds and chaos descended on the city we decided to get out of Dodge and do a follow-up roadtrip to Florida. Since our first visit we had studied up on manatees, and were not only planning on seeing manatees in the wild, we were determined to swim with them! We learned that during the summer months manatees commonly fan out north to the Carolina coast and west to the mouth of the Mississippi. On particularly warm summers manatees can swim as far north as New England. But year after year, in the winter the manatees all return to Florida and head upstream to lounge in the warm spring-fed waters of the rivers north of Tampa where the temperatures remain a consistent 72 degrees F year-round. Fortunately for the manatees, Florida has the largest number of artesian springs in the country.
We arrived at Crystal River Wildlife Sanctuary late at night so we could be on the first manatee tour the next morning at 6:00 a.m. when the manatees are most active. It was still dark in the morning when we all got fitted for wet suits, masks, snorkels and flippers. We then huddled together in a flat-bottom boat as we headed upriver to the gathering area of the manatees. When we arrived we could see several hulking shadows hovering under the water in the river grass along the bottom. The only part of the manatees we could see above water were their noses when they surfaced for air.
Our younger son, 6-year-old Adin, refused to go near the ladder along the side of the boat. 8-year-old Ezra made it into the water, barely, beforing panicking and clamouring to get out. While the boys soothed themselves with hot chocolate, my husband and I eased back into the water. Excited, we swam towards the manatees, which looked like massive grey blow-up pool toys. But as we approached, the manatees immediately backed away, keeping their distance. We quickly realized that the only way to get near the manatees was to float motionlessly in the water, and let the manatees come to us. Slowly the curious manatees eased in close, and before long we were face to face.
Manatees usually move at about 5 miles an hour, but can accelerate to 15 miles per hour in short bursts - a feat that we certainly did not witness. Since manatees have fewer neck vertebrae than other mammals, they have to turn their entire bodies if they want to look around. Despite their massive bulk, the manatees moved with remarkable grace.
Though 70 degree seems warm in theory, we soon discovered that laying motionless in 70 degree water - even in a wetsuit - is pretty darn cold. I survived around 10 minutes. My husband Fred hung in there for about 30 minutes before he too pulled himself up the ladder, shivering. Hot chocolate never felt so good. Despite the chill, getting close up and personal with the manatees was a thrill - and definitely the highlight of our Florida road trips!
Though facially similar to a tuskless walrus, manatees are most closely related to the elephant than to other marine creatures. Because manatees typically move so slowly, algae and barnacles often attach to their backs. They graze on aquatic plants, primarily sea-grass, for about eight hours a day and wolf down 10-15% of their weight daily. Sometimes called sea cows, adult manatees typically weigh up to 1,300 pounds and measure about 13 feet in length. While active, manatees surface to take a breach about every 30 seconds, but will only come up for air every 20 minutes while sleeping.
Manatees have no natural enemies. Even 12-foot long alligators give manatees the right of way. When a manatee wants to get by an alligator blocking its path the manatee often swims directly into the gator and nudges it out of the way. Their biggest threats are watercraft, pollution, and loss of habitat. Since 1966 manatees have been on the endangered list. The current population of Florida manatees is between 5,000 - 7,000. Manatees who manage to avoid power boats live an average of 40 years.
So if you’re ever in Florida, don’t miss the chance to swim with the manatees. There’s nothing like it! And if not, you can always do the next best thing and enjoy your favorite beverage with one of our manatee eco-friendly reusable glass drinking straws.
*Zaftig - Yiddish word meaning "juicy" or "succulent" which is also used to describe “plump” ]]>
Early glassmakers used oil lamps to create the flame necessary to do their craft, hence the name “lampworking”. Today lampworkers work with a highly focused flame produced by a torch using natural gas. Lampworking is also known as “flameworking” and “torchworking”.
Lampworkers use fire to soften glass to make it malleable and thereby suitable for crafting into various shapes, many of them highly intricate and colourful glass beads and figurines. Glassblowers, by contrast, melt glass inside a furnace, and then use a hollow tube to blow air into the molten glass to expand and shape the glass. As such, blown glass is typically hollow inside.
According to Roman historian Pliny the Elder (CE 23 – 79), prehistoric humans in Syria discovered glass accidentally around 5000 BCE when the rocks upon which they were cooking melted and then solidified after cooling. Before long “lampworkers” in ancient Egypt learned to make glass out of sand and quartz pebbles in small earthen furnaces shaped like beehives. Glass beads found in Egyptian archaeological sites dating back to around 4000 BCE are the first known manmade glass objects. By 3500 BCE ancient Egyptians were trading glass beads throughout the ancient Middle East. Glass objects, including beads, vessels and jewellery appear frequently in archaeological sites, both in Egypt and in surrounding countries.
Cobalt-blue glass beads created by ancient Egyptian lampworkers.
The original Egyptian lampworkers used hunks of glass produced in their furnaces which they shaped over an open flame. At first the Egyptian lampworkers produced their lampworking flame with a “hot volcano” - a term used to describe a cone-shaped furnace that allowed a flame to shoot up through a narrow opening at the top, with the escaping hot air replaced through an opening at the bottom. The result was a flame sufficient to melt and form glass. The most popular colours produced at the time were royal blue and turquoise which resembled the semi-precious stones lapis lazuli and turquoise which these early civilizations valued.
Ancient Egyptian glass bead in the form of a fish.
Over time, the ancient lampworkers shifted from hot volcanos to oil lamps. To boost the temperature of the fire these early lampworkers blew air into the flame through a pipe, a hand-held bellows, or a foot-powered bellows. The peoples of Mesopotamia adopted these techniques soon after the Egyptians. In the 1st century BCE the Roman Empire further refined lampworking in Phoenicia (comprising contemporary Lebanon and northern Israel). The Eastern Mediterranean, including Syria, Judea and Egypt, remained a centre of glass production down through the centuries. Over time glass production also travelled across the Mediterranean into Europe.
Ancient Egyptian glass bead portraying Hathor, the goddess of music who personified joy, beauty, love and motherhood. Height: 1 2/5" (3.5cm); Width: 1" (2.7cm)
Lampworking in Medieval Europe
After the fall of the Roman Empire in 476 CE, glassworking continued to gain popularity in medieval Italy. By 1200, Venice and the nearby island of Murano dominated the glassmaking industry, and Murano became the glass bead capital of the world for over 400 years. Despite Venetian efforts to keep their techniques secret, by 1400 the French, Germans, and others across the continent were also making glass.
Engraving of a lampworking workshop, Ars Vitraria Experimentalis, Johannes Kunckel, 1689.
The Industrial Revolution
With the emergence of chemical science and the invention of microscopes and laboratory glassware in the 17th Century, glassmakers began to use new additives such as lead to create stronger glass that was more heat and chemical resistant. The industrial revolution in Europe and America introduced automated glass production with the invention in1820 of the mechanical press. Glass quickly became a common household item for people of all social classes.
In the 1880s, Otto Schott invented borosilicate glass in Jena, Germany. Known also as Jena glass, borosilicate could withstand even higher temperatures and harsher chemicals. Schott created borosilicate by melting together silica sand, soda oxide/ash, aluminium oxide - all previously used in traditional glass making - with the new added ingredient of boric oxide or boron. The addition of boric oxide/boron gave this more robust glass its name - borosilicate. Glass artists often refer to borosilicate by the abbreviated term “boro”. At first the new borosilicate was used to produce largely scientific and utilitarian products such as glass tubing, beakers, bottles, and other laboratory glassware.
Oil burner from the early 1900s, Museum of Glass and Jewelry, Jablonec Nad Nisou, Czech Republic.
Lampworking In Modern Times
Borosilicate, however, presented a new problem which, in turn, gave rise to a solution that revolutionized lampworking. The melting temperature of borosilicate is so high that the existing oil lamps could not melt it. A method of heating the glass to much higher temperatures was needed for lampworkers to work the new material. Lamp designers found a solution borrowed from the welding trade. They created new tabletop torches which combined natural gas or propane with pure oxygen and produced a flame hot enough to melt borosilicate. The combination of the hot flame and precise focus of the new torches, together with the added strength of the boro glass, has allowed lampworkers to push lampworking to undreamed of new horizons.
Beadmaker in long skirt at the torch. Guillaume Louis Figuier, Industrie du verre et du cristal. About 1870.
In 1915, Corning Glass Works in Corning, New York, started making “Pyrex” bakeware and cookware out of borosilicate. Before long the name Pyrex became widely synonymous in the English speaking world with borosilicate. Present day lampworkers, including us, often explain our artwork by saying “it’s made from the same glass as Pyrex” which, typically, prompts a knowing nod of the head and “ah hah” in response.
Pyrex brings borosilicate to the masses. (1915)
It was around this time that reusable glass drinking straws produced from borosilicate glass tubing made their first appearance in hospitals as a way for patients to drink while laying in bed.
Yes, glass straws have been around since the early 1900's!!! And we've had customers tell us many times that they found glass straws in their attics or while cleaning an elderly parent's home. Treated well, glass straws can last over one hundred years!
And since borosilicate is heat resistant and highly robust, hospitals were able to easily boil and sterilize the glass for safe reuse. To this day reusable glass drinking straws are an essential tool for many hospitalized and disabled individuals. Lampworkers are able to easily bend the glass straws near the drinking end for greater ease of use for the bedridden and disabled.
Today, skilled lampworkers have taken reusable glass drinking straws to another level, adding artistic embellishments with a rainbow palette of borosilicate colours and designs. Some of these designs are actually not all that different from the glass artwork of ancient Egyptian lampworkers. Present-day artistic and eco-friendly reusable glass straws have also played a huge role in dramatically reducing the use of single-use plastic straws.
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Since that day in August 2015, over 100 million transfixed Youtube viewers have watched the heart-breaking video which galvanized a successful movement to eliminate single-use plastic straws. And the turtle shown in the viral video has become a symbol of that movement.
Figgener and her team encountered the male turtle while collecting data on sea turtle mating. Figgener noticed something protruding from the nose of the 77-pound (35-kilogram) male. Upon closer inspection, Figgerer realized that the turtle was having trouble breathing. At first the research team thought the wrinkled, brownish object stuck in the turtle’s nose was an aquatic worm. However, when they pulled a small length out of the turtle’s nostril and snipped off the end, they discovered that it was a section of a single-use plastic drinking straw.
The team decided to remove the plastic straw immediately since they were hours away from a veterinarian—and there was no guarantee the vet would know how to treat a sea turtle, let alone one with a potentially lethal length of stiff plastic lodged in its skull.
The video shows researcher Nathan Robinson using pliers to pry the straw out of the turtle’s nostril. The gut-wrenching procedure took around eight minutes, during which the sea turtle was in obvious duress, squealing in agony multiple times while blood dripped from his nose.
“You were able to show the suffering of a creature that was affected by a straw that someone had disposed of,” Figgener says. “Definitely that was an object that passed through human hands and made its way to the ocean. It had a very emotional effect on people and it definitely fueled the movement that already existed.”
It is tragically common to find plastic trash such as single-use plastic bags, plastic lids, and toothbrushes inside the stomachs of dead sea turtles, and fishing hooks lodged in a turtle’s mouth or flipper. Each year at least a million seabirds and hundreds of thousands of marine mammals slowly die when they entangle themselves or ingest plastic.
But Figgener and her team had never seen anything like this. No one can say how the straw ended up in the turtle’s nose. The most likely explanation is that the turtle swallowed the straw, gagged on it, and then tried to throw it back up. The passageways for food and air are connected in a turtle just like they are in people. That's why some of the material we cough or throw up can end up coming out of our nose. Olive Ridleys feed on crustaceans, especially on the seabed. So it’s possible the turtle was dining on shrimp when he gobbled up the straw with his meal.
Single-use plastic straws like these end up inside many sea creatures
After disinfecting the turtle's newly straw-free nasal cavity, Figgener’s team attached an identity tag to his flipper for research purposes and returned him to the water. The team spent the two-hour boat ride back to the harbor in silence. “We had no words,” says Figgener. “We just knew we had to get the video out to the public.” The team found a restaurant with WiFi and spent 8 hours uploading the footage onto YouTube. Once uploaded the video just took off. And the rest is environmental history.
Figgener and rescued sea turtle with her research team in Costa Rica in 2015. L to R: Macdonal Gomez, Daniel Stuart, Christine Figgener, Andrey MacCarthy, and Vee Koleff.
A year later Figgener ran into her old friend while doing further research in the Pacifc waters off Costa Rica. The turtle was in good health and happily consorting with his new mate. “He seems to be doing just fine and doing his thing,” Figgener says.
Figgener says people still tell her that the turtle video changed their lives — from causing them to forgo plastic straws, to bringing reusable bags to the supermarket, and to being generally more aware of their plastic use.
“Everyone suffers with our turtle through eight painful minutes of the video,” Figgener says. “But I have met many people in the past two years who told me that the video changed their entire outlook on single-use plastics, which made it already worthwhile. I used to show the beauty of nature and animals in my photos and videos, but this video taught me that showing the ugly truth in all its gory details seems to shake people up and sparks change by creating empathy and remorse for our actions.”
It’s now six years later and there’s cause to be optimistic that the video and the Oliver Ridley Sea Turtle that Figgener and her team saved have had a significant and positive impact. Back in 2015 Figgener made a comment that now seems prophetic. “I hope that in five years time, we don’t even need to discuss plastic straws. That there’s too many alternatives.”
There are indeed now many eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastic straws. Options include reusable metal straws, reusable bamboo straws, reusable silicone straws, reusable plastic straws, “compostable” straws, paper straws, and reusable glass drinking straws. All these alternatives are a step up from the single-use plastic straw that caused so much grief to Figgener’s Oliver Ridley Sea Turtle.
A detailed comparison of the advantages and disadvantages of the various alternatives, however, demonstrates that some options do a much better job for the environment and for the user than others.
For example, reusable stainless steel straws are virtually indestructible, but in every other category are inferior to reusable straws made out of borosilicate glass. Bamboo straws are uniquely biodegradable, which is good for the environment, but also means that they are only “reusable” for a limited time before they start biodegrading. And bamboo straws typically come in only one size - and one size clearly does not fit all beverages. Reusable silicone straws are floppy and hard to clean. Reusable plastic straws are still plastic, and will eventually wear out and end up in the landfill or ocean. “Compostable” straws seldom actually get composted and, likewise, end up in the ocean and landfill. And there’s a good reason that paper straws were replaced by plastic back in the 1960s. Sadly, paper straws fall apart in your mouth long before you finish your drink.
Reusable borosilicate glass drinking straws come out well ahead. They feel good in your mouth, are excellent for both cold and hot drinks, come in all lengths and widths making them perfect for every beverage including bubble tea, are easy to clean and dishwasher safe.
Just make sure your straws are made from borosilicate glass produced by reputable manufacturers which use the highest purity glass and maintain superior health and labour standards, such as those in the Czech Republic. Also, only buy from glass straw makers who stand by their product by offering a lifetime warranty for their straws.
So, to celebrate World Turtle Day 2021, and to honour the Oliver Ridley Sea Turtle who supercharged a revolution six years ago, do one new thing to help safeguard our environment. As Christine Figgener says, “Everyone can do something at home, even if it’s one thing.” You might even think of treating yourself to an eco-friendly “Save the Sea Turtle” glass straw with your favorite Oliver Ridley Sea Turtle crafted in glass right on the straw.
]]>Read on and we think you’ll agree that glass wins hands down.
Reusable Metal Straws
Stainless steel straws are virtually indestructible. But in every other category these metal straws are inferior to glass drinking straws. Stainless steel straws have sharp and hard metallic ends which are uncomfortable in your mouth and may crack or chip your teeth. Bacteria and mildew can grow inside a metal straw.
Although metal straws are dishwasher safe you will never know if the straw is truly clean because you can’t see through or inside the straw. Who knows what contaminants may be left behind?
Stainless steel straws also have a metallic taste that is particularly strong when drinking water.
And stainless steel is extremely efficient in transferring heat - which is not a good thing when it comes to reusable drinking straws. Never, ever, use a metal straw with very hot or cold beverages. You’ll burn your tongue and lips with hot beverages and crack your teeth with icy beverages!
Reusable Bamboo Straws
One benefit of bamboo drinking straws is that they biodegrade after their useful life. The problem, however, is that they have such a short useful life. Bamboo will fray, splinter and degrade. This process will accelerate if you try to wash your bamboo straw in the dishwasher. As the bamboo straw degrades, bacteria and mildew will appear on the inside of the straw.
And like stainless steel straws, bamboo is opaque. You can never see whether the straw is clean inside. It is impossible to sterilize a bamboo straw. Expect all your beverages to taste like bamboo. Oh, and bamboo straws typically come in only one size.
Reusable Silicone Straws
Reusable Silicone Straws are a good choice for small children who are still too young to safely use reusable glass straws. Silicone is unbreakable, no matter how hard a toddler may throw them onto the floor or against a wall. Silicone is also generally dishwasher safe.
Some reusable glass straw makers such as GlassSipper also sell straws to their customers with very young children. Just make sure to rinse your silicone straws thoroughly under the tap immediately after use to prevent the build up of crud inside the straw which can quickly lead to the formation of mildew and bacteria.
Reusable Plastic Straws
“Reusable” plastic straws have little if anything to recommend them, beyond being “reusable” for a limited period of time. Like single-use-plastic straws, reusable plastic straws may leach petroleum-based polypropylene and toxic Bisphenol A (BPA) into your beverage, your body, and the environment.
Many plastic straws are not dishwasher safe. Like reusable metal straws and reusable bamboo straws, reusable plastic straws are opaque so you will never know whether the inside of the straw is clean. More likely, the inside will be a breeding ground for bacteria and mildew.
And don’t try to drink a hot beverage with a reusable plastic straw, which is likely to melt in your mouth. Chocolate that melts in your mouth is one thing. Plastic melting in your mouth is quite another.
“Compostable” Straws - Not Reusable
“Compostable” straws are becoming more common at chain-cafes, and fast-food establishments. Beware the designation - “Compostable”. “Compostable” does not mean “biodegradable”.
Compostable straws do not biodegrade on their own. Tossed in a garbage or a recyclable bin, a compostable straw will remain intact much in the same way as a single-use-plastic straw, and cause much the same damage to the environment.
Compostable straws will only degrade in an industrial composter. However, virtually almost no compostable straws end up in an industrial composter. Rather, they end up in a landfill or in the ocean. Most compostable products such as straws are manufactured from polylactic acid plastic (PLA), which is made from genetically modified (GMO) corn. Moreover, it is also highly questionable whether industrial composters themselves are beneficial since industrial composters produce harmful microparticles that contaminate the environment.
Paper Straws - Not Reusable
If you are old enough to have used paper straws back in the 1960s and before, you’ll remember how they quickly collapsed and disintegrated in your mouth. Well, guess what? They’re back, and they still collapse and fall apart in your mouth. And when they do, you’ll also be reminded how paper straws always leave a wet-paper aftertaste in your mouth.
Unfortunately, paper straws are part of the problem, not the solution. Paper straws are a single-use product which creates waste. And watch out - some paper straws may contain harmful chemicals included to prevent the straws from getting too soggy and bleeding colored dye into your beverage.
Reusable Glass Straws
First of all, you should only buy glass straws made from borosilicate glass, which is the strongest and most durable glass commercially available. And you should only purchase from producers such as GlassSipper which provide a lifetime warranty on their straws - you break it, they replace it, no questions asked. Second, you should only use straws made from the highest quality clear borosilicate glass manufactured in the Czech Republic.
Don’t trust glass produced in factories with questionable health, safety, and labor standards.
And there are so many more reasons to choose glass. Reusable glass straws feel comfortable in your mouth. There are no hard or sharp edges. Glass straws are toxin-free, dishwasher-safe, and are resanitized with each dishwasher cycle.
Unlike every other reusable straw option, the transparency of glass lets you see if your straw is truly clean - inside and out. And unlike other reusable straw options, glass straws leave no aftertaste.
Everything tastes better with glass. Reusable glass straws are also perfect for both very hot and cold beverages since glass insulates and always stays close to room temperature, no matter the temperature of the beverage.
Only glass drinking straws also come in a wide variety of lengths and diameters so that you can custom-select your straw to perfection for your preferred beverage and drinking vessel. You’re a bubble tea lover? Glass straws come in the perfect size for you. Need a sleek reusable straw for your reusable venti cup? Dito - glass straws come in the perfect size for you!
And finally, glass straws are the only reusable straw that can also be fashioned into a unique hand-made work of art. GlassSipper Canada, for example, creates an array of hand-made glass art on its reusable glass straws. Love sea turtles? Whales? Bees? Butterflies? Or dogs? GlassSipper has a hand-made artistic straw just for you.
The Verdict
The more one learns about drinking straw choices, the more obvious the conclusion. Glass comes out ahead by a country mile. Glass feels good in your mouth. Whether piping hot or icy cold, everything tastes better with glass. Glass comes In every length and width you could ever desire. Perfect for everything from Blackberry Soda to Bubble Tea. Glass straws come out of the dishwasher sanitized, and sparkly clean - inside and out. Your eyes don’t lie. And no nasty toxins bleeding into your drink. And what could be more fun than a straw which doubles as a work of art that will always put a smile on your face. So go with glass. You’ll never look back!
]]>We’ve all chewed straws. Those plastic straws that are so chewy it’s almost like gum with no flavour. Without even noticing what we’re doing, we’re chomping down on something soft.
So it’s natural to wonder if we might forget that we’re sipping a glass straw and accidentally chomp on that and break it.
But if you’ve ever tried a glass straw, you would know that it could NEVER happen.
Our straws are made from laboratory quality borosilicate glass, the strongest glass possible, much stronger than your typical glass ware. It would be like biting down on a metal fork. No give and no fun.
Don’t try though, or you might find that you’ve broken a tooth, not our straw!
Of course, if a sipper is broken or has a chip, let us know and we’ll issue you a coupon code for a replacement straw. Just like you wouldn’t drink out of a chipped or broken glass, we don’t want you sipping a broken sipper.
Our straws are made from laboratory-grade borosilicate--the same material used in test tubes from the Czech Republic. The glass we use is the highest quality in the world, because we care about something you are going to put in your mouth.
Borosilicate is a much stronger type of glass than the soda-lime compound used in the vast majority of drinking glasses. It has a very high heat threshold (so it's perfect for hot or cold drinks!) But it is still GLASS so if your sippers are dropped on a hard surface or knocked against something hard they might break!
The strongest are the plain straws. When we add decorations, they become more fragile, but will still last years if not dropped! And yet, we still offer the lifetime warranty (every straw can be replaced once if it breaks but we don’t replace replacements).
In deciding if Glass Sippers are suitable for your child, you need to ask if your child understands that glass can break. If they are already drinking out of a glass cup, then they’re probably ready. We generally find that most kids over the age of 4 or 5 can use a glass straw responsibly. However, we recommend that parents use caution when giving glass straws to children of any age.. If you envision your kids using them in a sword fight, steer clear. On the other hand, many parents use glass straws to entice their children to drink healthy smoothies (we called my son’s green smoothie “dinosaur juice” and gave him a dinosaur straw to drink it with)! Many teens love our straws, especially with turtles and octopus on them - emblems of ocean conservation..
Still worried? Glass straws are toxic free, encourage drinking more water (or anything beverage, so easy on the cocktails!) and make every beverage taste better and cleaner.
We know that once you try glass, you’ll never want to sip from anything but. Try it! You won’t be disappointed!
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There are only four things to consider:
Our 15mm Bubble Tea/Boba Tea straws (10mm inside dimension) are perfect for drinking boba pearls. If you're a Boba Tea drinker, this straw is for you. Comes in 8" or 10" lengths.
8mm Skinny Straws (4mm inside dimension)
9.5mm Regulars (5.5mm inside dimension)
12mm Smoothies (8mm inside dimension)
Tip: Measure your drinking vessel, then add 2-3 inches
In choosing the length of your GlassSipper it may be helpful to know that most "disposable" plastic straws are 8-9 inches
6-7 inch Straws
8 inch Straws - our most popular length
9-10 inch Straws
Because we make each straw by hand, we can easily customize a non-standard length for you. Ask us!
This is a personal preference. Many customers who can't decide at first, get one of each.
Customers with disabilities who have difficulty grasping their straw often prefer bent straws.
Both straight and bent straws clean easily in the dishwasher and under the tap.
This too is a personal preference. We believe that even our plain straws have an elegant beauty, but choosing a GlassSipper with a design or critter will make drinking your beverage more fun, visually pleasing, and serve as a great conversation starter. The decorated straws can be a bit more fragile, so if you're worried about breakage, opt for a plain one for every day and travel and a decorated one to use on special occasions.
Most of our customers fall in love with their straws, and we believe you will too. GlassSippers make wonderful gifts for friends and family - and are great for our planet.
However, we also wanted to offer something that was sturdier that could be crammed into a backpack full of textbooks and computers, or survive being on the bottom of a purse filled with who knows what.
After trying a LOT of different materials, we have finally found a hard-sided carrying case for your glass straw! Made out of eco-friendly wheat-straw “plastic” this is our best case ever for protecting your glass straws. In the 6 years that we’ve been making glass straws, we’ve been searching for the optimal solution for carrying them safely. Although our straws are sturdy, we don’t want to worry about transporting them while travelling or on the go.
We have our zippered cloth cases, which we love, and carry everywhere, but we wanted something more protective with hard sides for those of us that might be a bit rougher on our straws. In fact, we find that the best way to carry a glass straw is using both, the cloth pouch as an insulator, and the hard case as a protector. Between these two, your straws are pretty much bombproof!
We’ve tried wood, bamboo and metal cases but all had shortcomings. If you’ve ever finished a green smoothie, you know that you need to rinse it off immediately or the straw will leave smoothie all over your case. Wood bamboo and metal cases were all difficult to wash, and impossible to sanitize. Plus, bamboo was too short, wood too heavy, and metal rusted. Although plastic seemed like a perfect choice in that it is washable and strong, we want to AVOID plastic not produce more of it.
Enter wheat-straw “plastic” which is made from the leftover stalks after the wheat grains are harvested. The wheat-straw plastic is gluten free because it’s made from the stalks, not the grain. In the past the stalks have been treated as waste. In some countries, farmers burn it, adding pollution to the air. However, the stalks have value as the main component of wheat straw plastics. The farmers make more money and we have an amazing plastic alternative!
Some sources say bioplastics like wheat-straw plastic are compostable, but composting bioplastics is complicated and we don’t recommend putting these in your garden, or even a city compost. But you won’t need to, because you will find a zillion uses for these little cases in addition to carrying your Glass Sipper.
Add cutlery alongside a straw in your new case and you’re ready for lunch on the go. Keep one in your purse or backpack and another in your car’s glovebox so you’re never without a straw and cutlery. Being prepared isn’t always easy, but these washable cases make it a breeze.
The cases are 24.5 cm long (9 ½”) and 5 cm wide (2”) and weigh just over 50 grams. You can put straws up to 9” long in these cases, and if you’re feeding a crowd, you can put up to 10 plain regular straws or over a dozen skinny straws! We recommend putting a cloth buffer if you are carrying more than one of our designer straws so that the designs don’t chip off with rubbing against each other.
GlassSipper wheat-straw plastic cases are strong, non-allergenic and gluten-free, microwave, freezer, and dishwasher safe, and BPA-free with no harmful toxins. The perfect answer to all your glass straw carrying needs!
]]>For those of us with school aged children at home 24/7, well, let's just say we have a new respect for teachers. They take our kids from 9 a.m. and send them back after 3, unless the kids have sport related practices or games, which could have them rolling in the door after 6. A full day with no kids! Imagine!!!
But no more. It's zoom learning, home schooling, making lunches, or worse, walking into the kitchen after they've made their own lunch. We have more family time, which is great, but it's difficult to run a family run business when the family never leaves the house.
My kids are teens, which is less challenging than my neighbours who have 5 kids between 3 and 9 years old. I can leave my kids as I go for my daily walk or lock myself in my studio to make straws. But it's not the same as having them out of the house. They still manage to need help finding ingredients for their lunches, and it's amazing how much mess they produce minutes after I clean the kitchen!
I look longingly to the days when my kids went to school, when there were other adults watching out for them, consoling them, correcting them and inspiring them. We're now faced with the daunting task of being their educator, soother, counsellor and even friend (yikes!).
I never appreciated how challenging it must be to face everyone else's kids all day. I can barely cope with two!
One day we'll return to those long kidless days, but in the meantime, let's think of ways to thank all of the teachers and educators who mid March, suddenly had to pivot from being full time class room teachers to conducting classes online, trying to reach the quiet kids, the troubled kids, and the kids who don't know how to ask.
There are many ways to thank them - donating to worthy causes, like backpackbuddies or local foodbanks, or by sending them a small gift or local restaurant meal.
I'm not assuming that a GlassSipper is the only way to acknowledge our teachers (though I'm sure they'd love one!), but let's think of how we can say a big "thanks!".
If you want to consider eco-friendly gifts, we have plain straws, decorated straws or even pouches for when we can finally get out of our houses! Your child's teacher might appreciate their own straw with a cleaning brush and carry pouch that they can bring with them as schools open up.
And if you don't have kids at home so don't have teacher's to thank, it's a good time to thank those frontline workers who have been risking their own health to save ours. Make someone's day by sending a small gift, making a donation in their name, or sending them a gift certificate to a local restaurant.
As local businesses scramble to open up, paying their staff and expenses is challenging. By sending a gift to someone we appreciate, we can help local businesses and put a smile on the recipients face. How good is that!
Sending gratitude,
Aimee
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Have you noticed that everywhere we look, new companies are jumping on the reusable straw bandwagon, importing made-in-China straws of metal, glass, bamboo and paper. Happily for us, we still stand out for a number of reasons.
]]>First, we can put our one-of-a -kind artwork on our straws. For me, the artwork has always been what makes this business exciting (and of course preventing 500 million plastic straws from filling our landfills). I came to this as a glass artist who loves that there is a better way than plastic straws.
Second, we use only the world's finest Czech borosilicate glass tubing. Coloured tubing all comes from China, and we are not willing to take a chance on a product that has not withstood the test of time. Czech tubing has been used for decades in labs and hospitals, and is the strongest glass commercially available.
Third, unlike some other glass straw makers, we anneal our straws overnight in the kiln at 1050 degrees for extra strength. It takes extra time for us to do this, but it makes your straw more durable. Never buy a glass straw, or even glass bead, unless it's been annealed.
Forth, glass insulates, so hot drinks aren't too hot and cold drinks aren't too cold.
Fifth, we offer our shockingly good "You Break It We Replace It" lifetime warranty. You might think that since glass is fragile, it's a good reason to buy other types of reusable straws. And if you have toddlers at home, you'd be right. However, we believe so deeply that glass is best that we are willing to replace your straw if it breaks. Glass will break if dropped on a hard surface, but just like grandma's china, treat it well and it will last forever.
Sixth, cleanliness is important, and you can sanitized your straw with each dishwasher cycle and see that straw is sparkly clean - inside and out. Heck, you can even boil it if you'd like. They are dishwasher safe and even microwave safe. If you don't have a dishwasher (or if YOU are the dishwasher), our natural bristle brushes will keep any reusable straw sparkling clean.
Seventh, everything tastes best with glass. No metallic or woody aftertaste, no bits of paper stuck to your tongue. There's a reason that you prefer to drink out of a glass than a metal/plastic/paper cup. Glass tastes best! And did you know that stainless steel will cause your carbonated drink to go flat faster? True fact!
Eighth, we know you care about your health and so do we. Glass is Toxin-free - no BPA's or chemicals that might be leeching into your bloodstream. Pure and simple - glass.
Ninth, comfortable in your mouth. No rough or sharp edges, no strange texture, just smooth rounded edges that feel great.
Tenth, glass is elegant. Simple or decorated, our straws look great. That's why some of the best restaurants and bars in the world are choosing to serve drinks with glass straws.
So after all these reasons, why would someone choose a different reusable glass straw? There are many eco friendly choices, and you need to choose the one that works best for you. If you are backpacking in the Rockie Mountains, a stainless steel straw might be best as there is no chance it will break. Toddlers at home, you might opt for siicone straws. Wanting something exotic for your tiki party? Maybe bamboo straws are best for that occasion.
But for day to day use, we find that glass straws are best. They're easy to clean, great for all types of drinks, from hot coffee to morning smoothies and they replace the need for single use plastics.
]]>Right now, Americans use about 500 million plastic straws a day, most of which end up in the ocean. In an effort to cut that number down, Canada and other countries, states and cities have committed to ban the use of single use straws. But what’s a straw-loving person to do? Now that you might need to think of carrying your own straw for to-go coffees and movie theatre Cokes, (let alone high end cocktails at restaurants), we thought we'd weigh in.
As we move away from single-use plastic straws, we want alternatives. It's not enjoyable to get more ice or smoothie on your face than in your mouth when trying to drink strawless, and some drinks, like bubble tea, are almost impossible to drink without a straw.
If you search up eco-friendly alternatives, you'll face a lot of choices. From metal straws to bamboo, silicone to pasta. There are many factors that go into making a good decision.
First, what are you drinking? If you are going to use your straw in a hot beverage, glass will insulate the drink so you won't burn your lips.
While stainless-steel straws are the most ubiquitous alternative to the plastic straw, they’re far from perfect. Metal transfers heat, so sipping scalding coffee could mean scalding lips. They’re also strong and hard, and unless the ends are thick and rounded, could cause some damage if you were bumped while drinking from one.
Second, where are you drinking? Are you camping in the wilderness or having a coffee at Starbucks? Do you carry your straw to work or only use it at home?
If you are going to be traveling it might be a good idea to carry a metal straw. They are almost indestructible and can tuck easily into your backpack. If you're carrying your straw to work, you can zip it into our straw glass pouch and it will stay clean and safe. But if it's going to take a lot of abuse, metal or silicone would probably last longer.
Third, who is using the straw? Is it for a toddler or young child who isn't ready to handle glass? Silicone would be a great choice as they are soft and flexible, and can even be custom cut with a pair of household scissors.
For an older child, one of our critter straws would be fun (or the inner child in all of us). Minimalists would likely prefer a plain glass straw.
For home or work, I love glass best. First, I can see if it needs to be cleaned and second, I prefer drinking out of glass. I find that metal leaves a metallic taste in my mouth. Not everyone is sensitive to metal, but for those of us who are, glass is best. Easy to clean, elegant and eco friendly.
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But, before we go to the recipes, here is some basic smoothie "hacks" for you.
Want more great ideas? Catherine McCord has just published The Smoothie Project. Check it out for some great ideas!
Classic Green Smoothie
Orange Creamsicle Smoothie
Chocolate Peanut Butter Smoothie
Peanut Butter Banana Smoothie
Pina Colada Smoothie
Strawberry Banana Smoothie
Mocha Smoothie
Mixed Berry Smoothie
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Farmer’s Markets and Craft Shows are a great way for us too. We get feedback on new straws, educate some people who haven't seen glass straws before (where have they been???), meet visitors from all over the world and of course, barter with the farmers for some great produce. I've traded straws for strawberries, blueberries, and of course, Okanagan cherries.
This summer we decided to work on our website and the torch instead of spending our Thursdays on Granville Island, and we missed it!
We love meeting our customers face to face. We get all kinds of ideas for critters that I otherwise wouldn't have thought of (such as our unicorns and sloths).
So we are feeling VERY deprived and even more excited than usual for Craft Show season to start.
This year, we will be at Circle Craft in Vancouver from November 7th to 12th. Although we live and work in Vancouver, it’s our only opportunity to meet our local customers and fans, some of whom have been buying our straws since we started in 2014.
Soon after, we travel across the country to Toronto for the One of a Kind Show. We spend 11 long but oh so incredible days there at one of the best craft shows in the world!
It’s such a privilege for us to spend those 16 days (the total time of both shows) with the public. And such a production! We spend most of the year making straws to sell at these shows, plus time designing our booths, hiring staff, thinking of new ways of displaying and the list goes on.
This year, we have a few new critters. They are ideas suggested by customers including giraffe, butterflies and even dinosaurs.
We can’t wait to see you at the shows!
Aimee and Fred
]]>We had been wanting to give back in a meaningful way and were looking for a non-profit organization to sponsor when we heard Dr Elaine Leung speaking on CBC radio against the use of single use plastic straws. We liked her and her passion, and invited her to our studio to show her what we are doing and talk about how we could support Sea Smart School.
Sea Smart is a non-profit that uses fun, hands-on games and activities to inspire and empower kids in Kindergarten to Grade 12 to love and protect our oceans in our school workshops, after school programs, and summer camps in Metro Vancouver.
We are proud to provide straws for the kids and also for public events as well as funding school programs. Elaine Leung, the founder, has a passion for the environment and educating our youth that is contagious.
If you would like to learn more about Sea Smart School and the work that Elaine is doing, you can find more information at seasmartschool.com
]]>However, we all know the negative impact our straw habit has on our oceans and wildlife.
Wondering how to clean your GlassSipper? Here's a fun video to show you how to clean any reusable straw.
]]>Quick clean is best for in-between drinks & deep cleans or when you don't have the time to do more.
Deep clean is when you want to make sure your straw is good and clean or when you've left it sitting in your car after drinking a smoothie (or when your teenager has left it in his room for a week!).
We do not recommend any harsh cleaners on our straws as there isn't a need for them. Use warm water and some natural soap to do the trick. 🚰If you are going for a deep clean, keep your straws soaking for a few minutes before washing through.
That's right. You break 'em, and we replace 'em.
Why do we do this?
We want you to buy them. We want you to feel comfortable giving them to your family, your friends, and enjoying them yourselves. We believe that glass straws are the best way to sip, for all kinds of reasons. No toxins to enter your body, no plastic to enter landfills and oceans, and no taste of plastic, metal or paper to ruin your drink. Because of the relatively thick glass wall, you can sip hot beverages as well as cold ones. And just like Pyrex, which is also borosilicate glass, you can pour boiling water on your straw and it won't break.
But if it does, we will replace it.
At the bottom of our home page is a link to the "my straw broke" form. Fill it out, upload a photo, and in a short time you will receive a coupon code for the value of your straw towards a replacement. All you pay is the shipping. Unless you order enough straws to qualify for free shipping.
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