i left soon after i got back, taking the motorcycle to belmont. after we finished the wings, my father and i went to my sister's place to clear out some unwanted furnitures in one of the upstairs bedrooms. 
my sister wasn't home, just hailey - who had a sticky head for some reason. the electronic keypad for the upstairs apartment was out of battery so it didn't work. my father and i went upstairs via the back stairs. we checked out the bedroom, there didn't seem to be anything that needed to be thrown out, so we left.
it was close to 2pm when we returned to belmont. after doing a bit of drone flying (trying to get some autumn foliage photos, the lighting wasn't quite right), i started tilling the raised beds in preparation for the garlic planting. my father was cleaning up the raspberry bed, then later taking down the bamboo trellises from the raised beds.
we added half a bag of chicken manure to raised bed 4. originally we were going to add a bag per bed, but a 25 lbs. covers 100 sq.ft. and our raised bed is approximately 30 sq.ft., so a whole bag would be too much. there were feathers in the manure, and lumpy clay pieces too. there was also a strong manure smell.
we also tilled RB2. in both beds i found a lot of maple tree roots, and RB2 in particular there was a long root that needed to be cut and removed. i dumped the other half of the chicken manure in RB2. there were some daikon radish seedlings which i dug up and replanted. it's been 2 months, not a single one of them has produced anything that looked remotely like a radish. maybe these will survive the replanting, but a better fate then getting tossed out.
there wasn't enough time to plant my garlics; besides, i wanted to till RB1 as well first. i'll need to come back tomorrow and finish up. luckily it looks to be a nice day like today, with temperature in the 60's.
around 5pm i was in the basement doing a soil drench on every single plant in the grow room. i'd prepared a bunch of BTi-infused water last night, but it wasn't enough, and i ended up adding more water while sprinkling some more fresh mosquito bits. i also treated the orchids and jade plant with neem oil. i found a few more mealybugs on the jade plant. while inspecting the jasmines, i noticed some sticky spots on the leaves. usually this means aphids, but when i turned the leaf over, i found a few fat mealybugs. so there's definitely some mealybugs on the plants. the key is to be vigilant and spray them before they get out of hand. i did put systemic granules into the soil, so i'm surprised the mealybugs can still feed on the plants without getting poisoned.
the fudingzhu osmanthus has been living in the dining room. but we noticed today that every single leaf seems to have brown spots on the tips, while some have even turned grey. this seems like a common problem with osmanthus, but could mean a multiple of different things: too much water, too little water, too much fertilizer, not enough sun. my father personally thinks the plant is too dry so he's going to water it more often. i also put too bricks underneath the plant and pour some water in the dish to give it more moisture. it's also suffering from a mild fungus gnat infestation so we watered with some Bti-infused water and we added 1/3 cup of systemic granules into the soil.
for dinner my mother cooked up a big bowl of hyacinth beans along with the frozen beef i brought over the weekend. the beans are okay, they have no flavors of their own, but they're good at soaking up other flavors, so they work well in a flavorful stew.
returning home, temperature was in the 40's. there was some frost on my motorcycle seat, and i could see my breath. i found a parking spot closer to my house (compared to yesterday where i had to park 2 blocks away).
tomorrow morning i need to do some grocery shopping first, before going to home depot to return a few things, then spent a few hours in the backyard preparing the raised beds and finally planting my garlics.