monday was my last visit to the community garden. i'm not even sure if i watered since it rained so much for most of early sunday into the afternoon. the past 3 days have been dry, despite several rain threats. the garden was due for a thorough watering.

finally, splashes of colors in my garden, in the northeastern corner, where i've planted several perennials. purple-pink-white spires of delphinium flowers poke out from the green foliage, and orange daylilies flower on tall stalks. down below are lupines and a few past season milkweed. i hope they can survive despite being eclipsed by the taller plants. in front i planted a row of mixed sunflowers; once they bloom i'll get another wave of colors.

zinnias and snapdragons are blooming too. the first of the zinnia flowers look a little ragged, maybe not enough water. the thing about zinnias is they're pretty productive, as long as i snip off the dead flowers. one snapdragon plant has flowered, white blossoms with a touch of yellow. i've only seen yellow/white snapdragons this season, from my parents backyard to my own garden plot. where are the pinks and reds and peaches? it's been a very boring snapdragon season. a few plants haven't bloomed yet, so there's still some hope i may see some other colors.

came across a 3in long hot pepper. i get these mixed hot pepper seedlings each year, so i never know which kinds i get until they actually start producing peppers. i've got a total of 4 pepper plants in my garden, can't wait to see what the other 3 will produce. my cucamelons are doing very well, much better than the ones at my parents' place. mine have big leaves, but i didn't check to see if there were any fruits yet.

i went directly from the garden to market basket for some groceries, stocked up on some sausages and a package of purple plums. it was a great day to go biking, not too cold, not too hot. what i really want is to do is take a ride on the northern strand community trail bike path that i saw on google maps. it goes from everett into malden to revere to saugus to lynn. it's pretty amazing, i'm surprised i never heard about it. the hard part is getting to the trail head. the closest way i reach this bike path is to get to wellington station and bike up river's edge drive/commercial street until i can cross over via medford street. coincidentally, i must've crossed sections of the path when i went to saugus yesterday, but just didn't notice it. if i leave early enough, maybe i can make a day of it, visiting the super 88 market on commercial street (didn't see that yesterday as well), maybe get some vietnamese pho for lunch in malden center, before continuing on the bike path. i might make it as far as revere beach if i'm feeling ambitious.

i had some white cheddar cheese spinach pasta shells for dinner. normally i use half-and-half for the milk ingredient, but the carton that i had expired more than a month ago. instead, i used half a cup of plain yogurt, which made it creamier and added an unique sour flavor to the dish. nothing like a big bowl of carbohydrates to satisfy my hunger. later in the evening i had no desire to do any additional snacking.

i dug out my flashes and played around with the remote trigger.