it has rained every single day this month and today was no exception. it wasn't little rain either, but steady rain, though the forecast said it'd let up by around noontime. when my mother called at 11am offering me a ride (my parents were going to the cafe to pick up some supplies), i said i'd get to belmont on my own. 30 minutes later - with the rain seemingly intensifying - i got in touch with my mother before they left the cafe to get a ride.

i had mantou stuffed with pork floss for lunch and a mug of warm fresh soy milk mixed with corn. the rain did eventually stop, at least the heavy stuff, with intermittent light showers throughout the rest of the overcast day where we never once saw the sun. the final solar production for monday was just 5kWh.

i hung out in the backyard, taking photos of plants with my dSLR camera. a lot of squash blossoms are occupied by either squash bees or cucumber beetles, or a combination of both. i squashed as many cucumber beetles as i could get my hands on (they're good at escaping).

the fruit on the squash vine growing outside of the raised bed continues to get bigger, i've been following its progress since saturday. as its first and only fruit, it has the capacity to grow very big, and the soil out of the raised bed seem to be better with nutrients so there's hope it can be a big one.

i found a new rabbit hole at the bottom of the southern fence, one of the few southern areas that hasn't been barricaded with buried fencing. there was also some wood damage, which makes me think it could also be a woodchuck, but the hole was too small. i scooped up a shovel full of dirt and patched up the hole but we need to keep an eye on it for future intrusions, otherwise we'll need to bury some fencing underneath there as well.

we have an abundance of climbing plants this year: cucumbers, bitter melons, buttercup squashes, hyacinth beans, cashmere hops, snap peas, long beans, morning glories, moonflowers, and cypress vines. the long beans are not doing well at all. my father thinks its birds, i think its insects, but something seems to be eating the hell out of the beans, totally defoliating them in the process.

my father started barbecuing in the afternoon: taiwanese sausages, italian sausages, corn, and shrimps. i helped with applying korean barbecue sauce on the corn when they were close to done. we ended up having dinner very early at 4pm. my father gave me a ride back to cambridge around 6pm. it'd started to rain again a little bit, enough that we had to use the windshield wipers.

the homerun derby was tonight, i nearly missed it, caught it after the 30 minutes mark. all eyes were on shohei ohtani. even though he didn't advance, he took his round with soto to the limit, with two ties before heading into 3-at-bat sudden death matchup. after shohei was knocked off, i stopped watching.

i tried returning the pair of turimon brand wireless earbuds i bought for my father before he found his lost pair. these aren't very good, they're hard to remove from the case, and the earbuds themselves are big, feel cheap, and sound tinny. when i told amazon i wanted to return the item and get a refund, they said they'd issue me the refund but that i could keep the earbuds. they weren't very expensive to begin with ($14, there's probably a reason for that). i've had this happen a few times with amazon, always with something around the $10 mark. i had a digital thermometer that i didn't have to return, and a hanging dry rack.