in the early days of a typical gardening season, i keep track of my garden religiously, watering as often as i can, documenting everything. these are the early days. eventually the garden will lose its magic - typically by mid to late summer after i've harvested a few vegetables - and i could care less and then leave everything to nature. i biked down to my plot this morning to water my plants. it'd only been 2 days, but i was happy to see that nothing has happened to my seedlings. and by nothing i mean no slug or snail damage - so far. afterwards i biked to rite aid to pick up my prescriptions before returning home.

GC finally contacted me with his summer itinerary: he's coming to boston on june 23rd, and leaving august 25th. i thought he'd be here sooner, like the first week of june, but this gives me another month to enjoy solo living.

today was a perfect day weather-wise, not too hot, not too cold. i wore shorts and a t-shirt. after a yogurt, i biked to belmont to do some yard work. i could've easily taken the motorcycle, but i wanted the exercise a bicycle would provide.

my original plan was to plant some of the seedlings my father had brought back yesterday, but the only work i did in the raised beds was to mix the compost and a bag of manure in RB1 and RB2. RB1 has some self-sown cilantro and dill seedlings i'm trying to keep. there's also a row of bolting kale, which we'll probably eat. this is actually their 3rd season, but they're taking up valuable space, and it's more convenient just to buy kale (though the last time i bought any was back in january 2016). there's nothing i want to keep in RB3 but there are a lot of first year money plant seedlings my father wants to keep so i'll need to transplant them to the empty plot of land next to the sourwood.

instead i spent the afternoon doing garden maintenance stuff: readjust the replacement hose fitting; wrap silicone tape around the holes in the garden hose; unclog the adjustable spray nozzle; and handcut all the overgrown grass around the raised beds. the readjusted hose fitting still leaked water (just a trickle), until i replaced the rubber washer; the silicone tape did seal the leak but a little bit of water still gets out; although i unclogged the nozzle (using a needle to poke up the tiny bits of sand stuck in the holes), i accidentally lost the spring-loaded rubber dot that clicks into place when i adjust spray pattern so now you just have to manually position the sprayer in the right position; handcutting the tall grass was pretty satisfying, the same feeling i get from mowing the lawn, the backyard looks so much neater afterwards.

when my parents returned home in the late afternoon-early evening, my father and i went out into the backyard to take a survey, examine our newly-planted trees, figure out where to plant some transplanted perennials (peonies, hydrangeas, goldenrods, red chrysanthemums). as for the trees, my father seems to be proud of the fact that our home depot purchased cherry tree has not died, with leaves sprouting at the tips of the branches, though remnant buds seem to be all dried up. the bareroot cherry tree is actually doing the best: most of the buds seem to be swelling, because there are no branches, we can shape this tree however we want once they do begin growing. as for the redbud and sourwood, neither of them have shown any sign of life yet. my father and i jacked up our 2 long ladders onto cinder blocks so they're not sitting in the soil.

production today was 46.90 kWh, not bad despite an abundance of puffy white clouds in the sky. it's the 12th day this month we've broken 40kWh+. the next 3 days seem to be sunny (with partial clouds), i expect 40kWh+ production for all 3 days, putting us closer to a target number of 1000kWh+ for this month (that's one SREC).

i biked home after dinner, the clouds thickening up ominously, a magenta glow on the western horizon as the sun sets. my headlight lost power and i was riding in the dark with about half a mile to go (though i still had a working red tail light). a package of 3 kenda 26x1.5" tubes were waiting for me on my doorstep.

like last wednesday, there was a confluence of 3 must-watch shows: 8:30pm NBA basketball game 5 between the cavaliers and the celtics; 9pm the expanse; and 10pm the americans (penultimate episode of the series).

they rebooted the expanse storyline, now everything takes place many months later. so if season 3 was actually cancelled (still hopeful that it isn't and that amazon bought up the rights for season 4), last week's episode would've been a good ending. however, i'm still glad we get more episodes for the time being.

as for the americans, this being the second to last episode ever, everything is beginning to get cray cray. elizabeth targets another russian assassin and sabotages the attempt to oust gorbachev, stan's suspicions of the jennings get deeper and deeper, the FBI arrest oleg after he collects a drop from phillip, phillip almost gets caught by the FBI (and can't go home for fearing of leading them back), and paige finally figures out that her parents' spy arsenal also contain sexpionage. we've come a long way since the heady days of nina and martha! can't believe next wednesday will be the last episode.

finally, throughout all of this excitement, there was an NBA game happening, an important pivotal game 5, the winner would enter game 6 needing just another victory to go to the NBA finals. boston got off to a good pace, with cleveland managing to match, and even lead at one time (maybe more, i wasn't following the score too closely), but it seems like boston held the lead for much of the game. the start of the 3rd quarter, both teams were playing sloppy, but the cavaliers just missed more shots while the celtics made a few more. once the celtics had a comfortable lead, all i wanted was for the clock to run out despite a quarter still left in the game. the final score was 96-83, boston victory. so far in the playoffs, the celtics have lost all their away games except for one (versus the 76ers; although they've won all their home games); in order to be the champions, they need to learn to win on the road. that's where veteran presence like kyrie irving would really help (if he wasn't benched due to injuries). i still don't know how the celtics are doing this, after losing their 2 star players. those injuries might've been the best thing to happen to the team, since it allowed the younger players - who normally wouldn't get so many minutes - to really shine. to their credit, the draft picks have lived up to their ranking.