worried about the amount of mold growing on my drying bottle gourds, i went online to do some research on cleaning them off. apparently mold is a good thing, because it means the moisture is being wicked out of the gourds. some of the gourds are very light - meaning that they're pretty much dried - while a few are still heavy - there's still a lot of drying left to be done.

i checked my blog records, and i don't remember when i called it quits on my rosemaries from last winter. in early february 2009 they were still alive and i was watering them (although there were signs of some early stage powdery mildew), but the next time i mentioned rosemary would be may 2009, when i planted some new ones in my community garden. i don't even really remember what happened last year. i think one problem was poor circulation, but i also might not have watered them regularly. i'm hoping the 3 rosemaries in my parents' sun room will some how survive this winter. i water them every weekend, and so far they seem healthy, although i did find some faint traces of powdery mildew (but i'm hoping more sun exposure will kill them off).

in my parents' backyard some of the bulbs i planted have sprouted. they've been out since the start of february, but they've been growing slowly. the crocuses are the easiest to identify with their tight bundle of leaves. some other plants that i thought were crocuses turned out to be alliums (onions). they were actually the ones that began to sprout in early december 2009 when we had that stretch of unusually warm weather. hope this doesn't somehow stunt their growth for the oncoming spring.

that reminds me: i may want to start my seedlings next month (march). last year i started them a little bit too late (april). it'll give me a reason to turn my storage space back into a grow closet once more.

i didn't have anything to eat until i got to my parents' place in the late morning. my sister made some hash browns with sausages and eggs. imy mother left for the cafe and my sister took hailey out into the woods (the first time since her leg injury a few weeks ago). my father had delivery duty tonight, so dinner was just with my mother and sister. we had some beef noodle soup in vietnamese-flavored broth.

the temperature was 35 degrees when i started my way back to cambridge. it was only after i got home did i realize my rear blinker light fell off the bike. it was a blackburn mars 3.0, and the clip had already broken off from being dropped a few times. it was fastened onto the back of my milk crate with a rubber band. in hindsight, maybe i should've used two bands instead. i thought about retracing my steps and looking for it, but didn't know where exactly i dropped it on the road and didn't want to ride all the way back to belmont again (besides, somebody else might've already picked it up, or maybe a car ran over it). i'm not too sad about the loss: i still have another one, and both of them were found on the streets to begin with (which says something about how insecurely they attach). it's actually a pretty good rear light, easy to operate (rubber push button), seemingly waterproof, blindingly bright, and designed to shine out to the sides as well. nevertheless, even though i had a spare, i still went online and bought a cheap $4 rear light from dealextreme i've been eyeing for a while.