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i was excited to see some thai basil seedlings (3 out of 4) on the heating pad pots. but to confirm they actually worked, i also looked in the grow closet, and was dismayed to find that those thai basil seeds had sprouted as well (2 out of 4). so it's still inconclusive as to whether the heat pad helped or not. i currently still have 3 ungerminated hyacinth beans and 1 reseeded bitter melon on the heat pad. if those somehow sprout this week, it will definitely make me a heat pad germination convert.

while in the bathroom, i checked the fedex tracker which showed me my sister's godmother's tv stand had arrived 40 minutes ago. i called her to let her know. she called me back minutes later, said she found the package, but it was too heavy to move. i told her i could be there in half an hour.

i left by 11:30am, traveling via motorcycle. it took me nearly 20 minutes to get there because they were repaving the road in front of the apartment, so i had to circle around cambridgeport, navigating all the myriad one way streets, to get close enough to the apartment and find a place to park. it make it even more of a challenge, there was also street cleaning today.

by the time i made it to the apartment around 11:50am, my sister's godmother had pretty much moved everything upstairs, piece by piece. only thing left with a single board and the box, which i brought upstairs.

when i saw all the pieces and the instruction manual, it seemed very daunting. there were 25 steps to assemble the stand. i spent 2 hours at the apartment, i only managed to get to step 7. finally i had to tell my sister's godmother that i wouldn't be able to piece everything together today, and i'd need to come back tomorrow. before i left, her other tv stand (the swivel base) also arrived. give the amount of progress i made today, i predict it's going to take another 4 hours before the tv stand can be fully assembled.

i left by 2pm. i went home, gathered my stuff, then rode to belmont. i stopped by danehy park to pick up some free composting bag, they're restarting curbside composting again. as good as it is for the environment, i kind of don't like it because the kitchen composting bin has a tendency to attract fruit flies during the summer. the flies themselves is not a problem; it's the maggots in the box that's a little gross. of course it's all voluntary anyway, nobody says i have to compost.

my parents weren't back yet by the time i arrived in belmont around 2:45pm (my father took my mother for her annual physical, earlier they went to baifu on a supply run). there was plenty of things to eat in the house (i hadn't had lunch yet) but the moment i arrived i was outside working in the backyard. mostly weeding (creeping bellflowers), followed by extensive photo documentation of all the things currently growing in the backyard.

my parents finally came back around 4pm. i had one of the final slices of strawberry rhubarb pie. afterwards my father and i planted the rhubarb plant we got from the community garden. we planted it in the spot where we tried to grow a rooted pussy willow tree that ended up dying. i asked if we should bring in the two potted jasmines we left outside as a test to see if they could survive the cold temperature, my father said to continue to leave them outside (in the basement stairwell, protected by plastic tarps). we also pruned off a few branches from the cherry plum.

while my father was watering the plants, i decided to fly my drone because of dramatic clouds in the sky. soon after i reached 400ft in the air, the dji fly app crashed on me. i'm starting to think it had something to do with notifications, especially text notifications. i had to reboot the phone a few times to get out of it. i even turned on airplane mode, but for some reason i still got a text notification, and shortly after that happened, the phone froze up again. i didn't do much flying, basically just elevation and then landed it manually by sight. as a matter of fact, i didn't even need the phone, and completely disconnected it while i used the controller alone to land the drone.

i forgot to check the progress of the dozen planted hyacinth beans on the heat pad. it's only been 2 days since saturday, but it seems to be doing something. the beans have swelled up, and at least one of them looks to either be ready to sprout or the seed has turned rotten and mushy. if any of these hyacinth beans germinate by next weekend, i will be pretty amazed and make me heat pad convert.

i rode back to cambridge after dinner. another secondary buttercup squash had sprouted and i had to dig it out and put it in its own pot. luckily i brought back some leftover potting soil from belmont. this makes 18 buttercup squash seedlings, which means a germination rate of 90%.