i bicycled to belmont with thoughts of fungicide on my mind after noticing powdery mildew spots on a few squash leaves. my mother and sister were cleaning the house, in anticipation of a possible distant relative visiting from china within in the next few weeks. after watching a few episodes of A&E's hoarders, we've been throwing that word around, accusing one another of being hoarders, and giving everyone a good reason to declutter.
i didn't go out into the backyard until late (2:00) but that's when i noticed the rubber watering hose had burst, spraying water close to the basement entrance, soaking the lawn and parts of the squash/gourd trellis. apparently my father must've forgotten to turn off the water. throughout the course of the day, the water inside heated up and expanded until it finally burst through the hose. fortunately it happened near the end, which can be easily cut off and replaced. i'm not quite sure how long it was leaking though; my mother said she heard the sound of splashing water since this morning but a nearby bucket barely and any water in it, so maybe i caught it just in time before it turned the backyard into a marsh.
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the red corns have started to tasselate and it won't be long before a cascade of corn pollen lands on the silk strands down below. sweet red corn tassels are very distinctive because they're red, like the kernels they'll one day hopefully form.
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maybe i spoke too soon about the squash vine borer situation: i found a few more grubs, and further investigation revealed a more extensive infestation that i first thought. i seriously need to get my hands on a syringe and inject Bt directly into the vines if any of these fancy gourds have a shot of surviving the summer. almost to rub my nose into the situation, i spotted another adult SVB visiting the garden. i almost caught it and tapped it into a plastic cup a few times before it flew away. like i previously mentioned, i didn't have the same problem last year because the month-long overcast in june delayed squash flowering until well after the SVB's normally appear to lay eggs. next season i may have to play a second squash crop starting in june and also take measures to protect the most vulnerable lower base stems (like with tin foil wraps).
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the hot peppers, now more mature, are beginning to show which kind they are. i'm pretty sure i have some anaheim, some cayenne, and some hungarian wax. my only gripe is there are too many peppers per plants. the bigger peppers grow only one per plant while the smaller ones are just a handful. i don't see anymore new flowers either so i think that may be it for the peppers. i'm hoping i'm mistaken.
my mother watches all her chinese/japanese/korean soap operas using ppstream, a video streaming software popular in china. they used to also stream american shows with chinese subtitles, but stopped abruptly one day, which i assumed was for legal reasons. after chatting with my roommate though, she told me my mother could still get those shows if she just registered (a free service). sure enough, it worked.1 i've always had a problem with pps services. even though i occasionally skirt the edge of legality with video downloads, ppstream is unabashedly illegal when it comes to its content. the level of sophistication is amazing, and i'm surprised the american movie industry hasn't caught on and tried to do something about it. it's not only television shows (an extensive selection, every single episode of practically every recent and not so recent broadcast programs) but also commercial movies as well. all lovely subtitled for the consumption of the largely chinese audience. maybe people haven't caught on yet because it requires a bit of chinese language knowledge in order to navigate the user interface and to set up an account.
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i came home about the same time i did last night, around 8:30. this time the house was entirely dark. i knew my roommate was home because i saw her shoes. apparently she's a very early sleeper.
1 it worked but with a caveat: it requires at least 4 days worth of watching before it will reveal the western ("oh-mei") content. or accordingly to my online sources. my father, who uses a different account, already has all the shows (according to his account, he's been active for well over 3 months, so he has full content clearance).