after watering the front and back yard, i had some final leftover sausages for lunch. i weighed myself this morning, down to 146.8 lbs., thanks to brown rice and quinoa. i biked down to the community garden to water my vegetables. the healthiest plant in my garden? milkweeds. taller than all other plants, they're also ready to blossom, forming flower bud clusters. even when i was growing milkweeds in my old plot, i don't think i ever got them to the point where they flowered so i'm very excited. i also noticed one of my tomatoes already have some small fruits. tomatoes need to fruit early in order to avoid late season blight. i also pruning back some lemon balm (giving my rosemary more sun) and rampant spearmint, and snipped the flowers off of my thai basil plants to induce more leaf production.
i biked to belmont in the early afternoon to wash a blanket using free electricity from the sun. i passed the cafe along the way to drop off the kitchen compost bucket i picked up yesterday. my mother told me my father had already gone home, thinking i was there, bringing back some pan-fried raviolis (i already ate lunch). while i was leaving i saw my father pulling into the parking lot. after talking with him briefly, i continued to belmont.
while the blanket was spinning in the washer, i was upstairs watching the world cup game between iran and spain. i was rooting for iran. because spain had tied with portugal and iran had won their match against morocco, spain was in in the very real danger of not advancing if they lost the game. for iran, all they had to do was to prevent spain was scoring. unfortunately that's easier said than done, as spain is one of the favorites to win the world cup trophy. i'd forgotten how spain plays, but it's really kind of beautiful yet annoying at the same time. the whole team plays as a unit, passing to one another, with the strategy of not giving the ball to the opponents, like 90 minutes of keep away. to iran's credit, they kept spain to just a single point, but that was all they needed to win the match, 1-0. i didn't watch the whole game, during the half i tossed the wet blanket into the dryer and went into the backyard to do some yard work.
i did some weeding in the garden plots, figured out i can quickly sift the soil with the cultivating tool. afterwards i planted the potted peppermint and lemon balm underneath the grapevines. i finally moved the goldenrod plants from the western side of the house to the southern end amongst the spiderworts, ornamental grass, and hostas. not sure how they'll do this season as the stems are all crooked and lopsided from being trampled and moved, but they'll grow back strong and beautiful next year. as for the western side, we may end up planting a screening tree there. next came the watering, which can take some time, from watering the bare patches of growing grasses, to the garden plots, to our new trees. i managed to flush out another bunny, after my father and i chased one out on monday. i just hope it's not the same one. chasing a rabbit out of the backyard is a two person job, so i didn't bother.
it actually didn't take very long to tumble dry the blanket (about 20 minutes or so). afterwards i turned on the air conditioner to make use of the surplus electricity, but turned it off in the late afternoon when it started to get grey outside.
when my parents returned home, my mother refried the fried raviolis for my dinner, but my parents just had regular boiled dumplings. i also had a bowl of sweet red bean soup. these were tiny red beans (tic tac size) which i've never had before. finally, there was some cubed watermelon.
after biking home, i moved the old philips tv out to the curb. i was feeling sentimental before and toyed with the idea of keeping the tv, but after lifting the set and realizing how insanely heavy it was, i'm happy to see it gone, there's no way i'm ever going to use it again. even the largest HDTV this days is many magnitudes lighter than this behemoth.
44.57 kWh isn't bad considering how cloudy it got later in the afternoon. i already knew we wouldn't set any records today when production was already jumping up and down by late morning.
after a shower, i watched the expanse on mobdro. aliexpress sent me e-mail letting me know that the TYT transceiver has been shipped out. i also ordered a WEme USB 3.0 to SATA/IDE adapter for $18, so i can consolidate the data on some old IDE drives onto SATA drives (arrives on friday).