ToolGirl Mag Ruffman's Official Web Log

Non-toxic, Natural Weedkiller - Weed B Gon

This stuff seriously rocks.  Weed B Gon exposes weeds to excessive amounts of iron (absorbed through their leaves and roots when you spray it on).  Oxidation damages the interior cell walls and the weed turns black, shrivels up and expires. 

Here's my photo essay:

Day One - I came, I saw, I sprayed

Day Two - Evidence of oxidization...or is it all in my mind?

Day Three - Was I just imagining the slow death of a common enemy?  I think not.

Day Four - See yah, sucka

There's a little I missed on the edges, but the big sucker in the middle is toast. 

The beauty of Weed B Gon is that it only attacks broadleaf weeds, not grass, so you can spray it all over your lawn and only the weeds will die. 

(Nailing the weeds growing in mulch, though, was a priority for me because Daniel and I carefully spread 8-inch-thick mats of mulch all over the gardens this spring and it was wounding my pride to see them peppered with dandelions)

EcoSense Weed B Gon is available everywhere Scotts products are sold - notably Home Hardware, Home Depot, Lowes, RONA and many independents.  

And here's the final shot after 5 days:

My Latest Sugru Hacks

We were driving downtown the other day and as usual, I was doing vocal exercises.  Because you can never be too loud in life.

The iPhone accompaniment started crapping out and I discovered an exposed cable.

Fortunately I had Sugru in my purse, and what modern girl doesn't?  I cut open the package with my multi-tool (also in my purse) and started the repair.

Since I'd happened to have written a blog post earlier that morning about the fantastic phosphorescent hack featured on the Sugru blog, it occurred to me that black-on-black repairs have no drama. 

So I took some eyeshadow out of my purse and rubbed it into the Sugru surface, creating an iridescent finish. 

I had extra Sugru left over so I hacked the back of my iPhone case with a Tree of Life design to give it more grippiness, and once again iridescent-ized the finish.  

Eyeshadow is a great way to sex up a monochromatic black Sugru hack, even if my tree looks too much like a varicose vein.

Automatic Milk Frother Ends the Heartbreak of Dairy-Related Explosions

If you're accident prone in the kitchen, making lattes and cappuccinos for guests can become a dance of desperation ending in burnt skin and Jackson Pollock'd walls.  

I've tried using a microwave but that led to countless eruptions of overheated milk. 

I was happy to get a cappuccino machine because it had a little steam arm on it that would, I surmised, give me the barrista's glib dexterity for creating the perfect jug o' hot foam. 

But the steam shoots out of that little arm under violent pressure.  You could carve rock.  I made volcanic messes and soiled every surface within a six-foot radius.

So when Keurig came out with an automatic frothing unit, I was one of the first in line to try it.

Some people would say that owning such a specific device is ridiculous.  But those people haven't had to clean up one of my milky detonations. 

One mistake I made in my testing of this unit was to try frothing and heating whipping cream.  The motor isn't equipped for that degree of load, so it just overheats and turns off.  The lower the fat content of the milk you use, the better the foam. 

It's pretty easy to clean after use because the inner surface of the container is non-stick.

It would be nice if Keurig made a larger unit since it only makes about a cup of foam at a time and if you have a high foam demand at a dinner party, you can get a little frantic.  If you weren't frantic enough already from having to feed and entertain people who might have expected that you knew how to cook when they accepted your invitation.

The Keurig milk frother is available online for about $90 in Canada, and about $75 in the U.S.

Buy some | sugru | Hack Things Better

via sugru.com

Hey lovely ToolGirls and ToolGuys, this stuff is drop dead amazing (you can see some of my hacks in the blog entries below). Owning some Sugru is like having your own personal plastic. Fix, mend, augment, patch, form and create with this silicone rubber compound that cures at room temperature to a strong, grippy, slightly flexible wonder material.

I got in on the first order last December when they sold out in 18 hours. Don't miss this opportunity to pre-order! (I'm not paid to say any of this, I just think it's a fantastic product.)

Note: The site is a bit slow today, probably because there is such high demand and people have been waiting for months to order.

Add Phosphorescent Powder to Sugru for Glow-in-the-Dark Action!

via sugru.com

Wow. Amending Sugru with glow powder.

I'm way too excited. 

And I'm pretty sure they make glow powder non-radioactive now, unlike the stuff we had when I was little.  Which explains a few things about my personality.

If I find a source for glow powder I'll post it. Okay, here it is...$10 will get you started on the glowy path!  I could squeal.  Oh, I just did. 

How to Make a Cheap, Recycled Hummingbird Feeder

Thanks to Art Phillips, a friend I met on Twitter, for this great link. I love how the guy is shooting at the same time as he's reaching for things.  It adds suspense to a great design.

Hummingbirds are really entertaining so it's worth giving them a starring role in your garden.  The butterflies will like this feeder as well.  You would too if you had a huge proboscis.