my outdoor weather sensor in cambridge said the high temperature today was 86°F. there was no way i'd be spending the day at home, i simply had to go outside and enjoy this warm weather. after some avocado toast for lunch, i left the house by 1:30pm. it was hot enough for shorts, but all my summer clothes are in storage bins in kevin's closet, and i won't be able to get to them until after he leaves.

first stop was to the community garden, where i watered my plot. i noticed david has been slowly filling in his garden. i don't know if he buys or grows his own seedlings but they're magnificent, short enough not to topple over, with thick stems, and plenty of healthy leaves. he had tomatoes, japanese eggplants, and cucumbers. his garden is a mess but but my summertime he grows enough food to probably not need to buy anymore produce.

after that i set out for boston to haymarket, to look for some "ugly fruit" oranges. it's been 3 weeks since my last visit, i was hoping new produce would be in stock. i arrived at haymarket by 2:15pm. last time i guessed maybe 1/2 the vendors were there; this time around there seemed to be even less. the sidewalk facing quincy market has also been demolished, so the few vendors that would normally be on that side are gone as well. with a new hotel being built on top of haymarket plus the addition of the coronavirus social distancing, i fear for the future of haymarket as a local institution.

they didn't have the oranges i wanted, i don't think they're ever going to have it this season. i left with this haul: 2 melons ($3), 1 lbs. of multi-colored hot peppers ($1), 10 white peaches ($2), bunch of cilantro ($1), 2 cucumbers ($2), 10 baby cucumbers ($2), and 5 limes ($1). instead of going home, i took a tour of empty quincy market again.

i got home by 3:15pm. i then went to star market where they had a memorial day sale on corn (8/$2) and watermelon ($4). i then packed everything into my saddlebag and backpack, and rode the motorcycle to belmont to drop off the supplies. i could've waited until tomorrow, but reports say the daytime temperature difference could be as much as 30 degrees, so better to go today while the weather was still nice.

my mother tried one of the honey tangerines i got yesterday from the allston 88. she immediately said it was too dry, barely edible. i tried one, yes, maybe a little dry, but very sweet, nothing like she described. i was about to leave but my mother said she was making dumplings tonight. i told her if i didn't use up the rotisserie chicken i bought on wednesday that it was going to go bad. i finally left by 4:45pm.

when i got back home i planted another white hydrangea in that space between renee's house and our house. i'm not sure who that spot belongs to, but there was a bare patch of dirt just the right size for a hydrangea. unfortunately there seemed to be a large piece of concrete buried underground. instead of digging it out, i left it in place, and planted the hydrangea anyway.

at 6pm i started making my rotisserie chicken stock for my rice noodles. i removed the two drumsticks (my mother said she wanted those) and split the rest of the chicken into parts. into the pot it went, along with some crushed ginger, a dash of chinese cooking wine, some ground white pepper, and a stick of scallion chopped into large pieces. i filled the pot with cold water and set it on boil with the cover on. once it started boiling, i removed the cover and turned the heat down to a simmer and left it for an hour. i also added some salt later on because i felt the broth didn't have enough flavor, about 1/2 tsp of salt.

another perfect production graph line, another day of 50kWh+ electricity. it's been like this since tuesday, 4 straight days of 50kWh+. strange thing is every day there seems to be a little less production. today we didn't even break 7kW. the day length is increasing so you'd think production would be increasing, not the other way around. my personal theory is every day this week the high temperature has gone up about 10° per day. hotter it is, the less efficient the panels perform. in the dog days of summer we still manage to make high production simply because of quantity over quality. we're probably not going to hit 7kW, at least not without the help of clouds. so far this month we've had 8 50kWh+ days. last year we only had one, and the year before that just 3. we keep this up for the next 9 days, we're looking to shatter some major records here.

by 7pm the chicken stock was finally finished. i spent some time fishing out any bones and other inedibles. i then scooped out a medium pot's worth of broth and various chicken meat and reheated it again, this time adding some rice noodles, some 天津冬菜, some fried garlic, chopped cilantro, and a dash of black vinegar. i haven't made rice noodle soup in a long time, this used to be one of my staples. buy a rotisserie chicken, eat it on the first day (lunch and dinner), save everything (including bones), use it to make a broth the next day, making enough broth for 3 additional servings of chicken rice noodle soup.

i ate while watching red sparrow on FX. stylish, yes, but a terrible movie, amazed it got made. jennifer lawrence is such a ditz in real life, but all the characters she plays in the movies are nothing like her. afterwards i watched the magnificent seven.