annie left for work soon after i woke up. i waited until she left before using the bathroom. one thing i noticed is that on a few occasions, she's left sticky poop in the toilet. today was the third morning i've received such a surprise. flushing won't clean it off completely (otherwise it would've been gone already), and not even pouring hot water into the toilet. the only solution is to use the toilet brush, and even though it's designed for such a purpose, i hate getting anything fecal on it.
during my routine lotus jar water change, i measured the seedlings, a few of them looking particularly long. measured from the bottom of the seed, one of them was already 6" while another was 5-1/2": these two would have to be planted today, otherwise they'll grow too tall. i ended up transferring the two tall seedlings into a jar with a water tight lid. i filled the inside completely with water so it'll act as a cushion as i rid the bike the belmont to plant them in my lotus barrels.
arriving in belmont, i planted one seedling in the deep barrel while the other seedling in the wide barrel. the lotus seedlings still need to grow a few more inches before they can break free from the water surface. i didn't plant them too deep, about halfway in the sand so that the second coin leaf shoot was poking out of substrate. i also examined the existing lotus leaves. on the underneath is an iron-shaped pattern of red lotus hairs that also matches the hairs on the stems. the green 1st coin lef is also green on the underside, but a more olive green. the underside of the 2nd coin leaf is definitely red, more so than the topside. i also did a partial water change but the deeper lotus barrel still looks murky; the only want to solve that is to drain the barrel completely and refill it.
we've been running the delonghi dehumidifier on the basement since this weekend, but we were able to collect data for a single 24 hour period because the used smart plug had some previous timer setting (when it was used for a lamp) so it turned off the dehumidifier at 10pm every night. i only discovered this yesterday. today was the first full day of usage measurement. by day's end, the dehumidifier used up 8kWh of electricity. i wonder if it'd use less electricity if it was so humid in the basement? we only started turning the dehumidifier back on this weekend. the humidity in the basement was 67%. it actually didn't feel humid, more cool, because the temperature is also lower in the basement. but if left unchecked, the humidity could breed mildew which will give the basement a terrible smell. maybe the dehumidifying air conditioner will do a more efficient job of dehumidifying the basement. even after running the dehumidifier for several days, the basement was still 66-67% humid, didn't even make a dent.
i planted some grass and left the mini solar controller on the dining table before biking back to cambridge. there was a light misting of rain both going and coming back. fearing it was the start of the rain, i went to rite aid to collect my prescriptions before going home. originally i'd wanted to go to market basket but i'll do that tomorrow.
the 80D coupled with the 55-250mm lens is great for shooting people. the 45 cross-type focus points makes it so that nearly every photo is tack sharp. combined with the longer 250mm reach of the lens and the IS, i'm starting to wonder now if this isn't my new goto lens for parade photography. i still haven't tried out the 80D with my 70-300mm lens, maybe it'll bring new life to an old telephoto lens.
i finally got around to cleaning my aquarium tank. i'd promised myself i'd try to clean it every 2 weeks, to prevent algae from blooming, but i got lazy, and waited almost a month before cleaning again. i cleaned out the filter, adding fresh activated carbon. i didn't uproot the driftwood and associated java ferns, i just pulled off the strands of hair algae by hand.
i don't understand why some lotus seeds don't germinate, given how they can last for hundreds of years and still be viable. maybe all seeds have the potential to germinate, but certain conditions prevent them from doing so, like how they're susceptible to rotting. the lotus' strategy isn't one of making sure all its seeds germinate, but rather its one of outgrowing its competition by making a lot of underground rhizomes and aerial leaves. still, i think i did okay for this second batch, 6 out of 11 seeds. i'm just a little worried that there won't be enough hot days for these lotus seedlings to grow large enough to survive into next season.
i was on standby all day because the new commercial refrigerator for the cafe was supposed to come (my father needs my help to move the appliances once delivered). but by day's end i heard nothing. when i called my parents in the evening, they told me it's definitely coming tomorrow, but that's what they said last week, and what they said about today.
mediocre production but production nevertheless. not the worst this month - that honor goes to last thursday (20th) when we only made 8.19kWh. at least today we got double digits, small victory. the final production was 14.24kWh. we will need to average 30kWh per day (5 days) for the rest of the month (to sunday) for us to break the june 2018 record. after 12:30pm the solar panels struggled to just reach 1kW, alternating back and forth the rest of the day.
annie came home around 6pm, immediately went to the kitchen to make dinner. i heated up some french bread pizza in the oven for my own dinner. later in the evening she asked me if i had a vacuum because she wanted to clean all the hair off of her bedroom floor.
3 of the seedlings are already 5-5-1/2" long, they will definitely need to be planted tomorrow (wednesday). i will probably take them all to belmont and ask my father to do a water change on the last seedling, which based on how the other seeds have developed, will probably be long enough to plant by thursday. the longest seedling also has the tiniest sprout opening, i wonder if that's the secret of a healthy germination. however, the longest seedling doesn't have a second coin leaf sprout yet, while all the other seedlings do.
not happy that the tiny hole seedling hasn't made a second coin leaf sprout yet (even the shortest seedling has a 2nd coin leaf nub), i decided to help things along (so much for letting nature takes its course) by performing a little plant surgery. using an x-acto knife, 
i carefully pried some of the shell to enlarge the opening. the shell was soft but leathery, maybe it just got stuck trying to burst apart. from the macro photo i can make out the split where the two halves of the seed come apart. i didn't nick any of the inner white layer of the seed, so hopefully the seed is still safe.