i motorcycled to belmont to try out the bottle of Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) i bought from home depot. i found some more squash vine borer (SVB) eggs, not sure if they're new or ones that'd missed from yesterday. i'm sure i knocked a few into the dirt; i'm afraid those will hatch and the larvae will find their way back onto the squash plants. Bt is only effective if the caterpillars eat it. it's not a contact poison like many of the nerve agents found in far deadlier chemical pesticides. once Bt is ingested, it ruptures the digestive system of the larvae and they starve to death in a few days. it may be slow acting but the result is crueler (and cooler). Bt is harmless to humans and pets however (otherwise i won't use it), and breaks down readily when exposed to sunlight. once the borers get into the vines though, another solution is to inject the Bt solution into the hollow center of the plants, drowning the larvae in lethal bacteria. where can i go to find a free syringe?

the liquid Bt has the color and consistency of a wheat grass shot you might find at a health food store. after some fancy math, i figured out how much Bt i needed to mix with water for my hand-held spray bottle (had i known it was a pint, it would've saved me some calculations) - half a teaspoon, or 2 scoops from the small end of my miracle-gro measuring spoon. i ended up spraying two bottles worth of Bt solution. it probably won't do anything to prevent the SVB from hatching, but can't hurt to try. it's also fun waging biological warfare in the garden on a micro scale. maybe i'll hatch the eggs i've collected then run various natural pesticide experiments on them. am i a monster? probably.

i stayed in belmont, thinking i might want to try and visit the traveling carnival happening in lexington. in the end i decided against it. when my mother came home in the early evening, my sister went to the nearby burger king to pick up some food (that's our go-to place when nobody feels like cooking). i had two spicy chicken sandwiches (didn't realize they were so small) with some onion rings.

tonight is the last night of peaceful sleep before the heat wave moves into town. i'm going to bring up my air conditioner from the basement tomorrow morning and try to install it myself.

finally, i watched bits and pieces of the two world cup games happening today. i couldn't believe the dutch beat brazil, especially since brazil scored their first (and only) goal just 10 minutes into the game, and quickly scored 2 more but were rescinded due to being offsides. i was already predicting a blowout but little did i know they'd go on a scoring drought that lasted throughout the rest of the game until they lost. uruguay versus ghana was a different story. based on the last play at the end of 120 minutes mark, ghana should've won. another game decided on penalty kicks, which i think is a stupid way of settling a tie situation, and puts amazing pressure on the goal keepers. uruguay stole the game, but now they're up against the netherlands in the next round, so they must be feeling pretty good about their chances of making it to the final.