by the time i made it to belmont this morning, my parents had already gone to restaurant depot for a supply run. no clear plastic cups and no plastic bento boxes. the restaurant depot has faced supply chain issues for months now, it's easier just to buy online; even though they might be more expensive, at least they have things in stock. my mother made some wonton soup for lunch and i finished the leftover fried porkchops and calamari.

i bought some new hard outdoor faucet covers ($3.51) the last time i went to home depot, but we still have the ones from last year. the only problem is the old covers are missing the foam seal. i just happened to have some leftover insulating foam weatherstrips that we managed to cut up and apply as a new seal. they're not as thick as the original foam, but they should still work. that means i can return the covers i bought.

while my mother left for a walk to the mt.auburn star market, my father and i were out in the backyard doing yardwork. temperature was in the 50's, warm enough for me to strip down to just a t-shirt after a few minutes of outdoor activity. i mowed the front yard first, raking out the leaves from underneath the shrubs and pulverizing them with the mower. my father took over mowing duty in the backyard while i trimmed back all the dead hosta leaves and ornamental grasses. we also drained the two front yard rain barrels by the living room window and emptied another barrel by the sunroom.

we moved the picnic table to underneath the maple tree; the table is in pretty bad shape, several wood pieces have rotted, maybe it'd be better to get a new table instead of replacing the individual wood planks. we bought this picnic table more than 10 years ago, june 2010. if we get a new table, we can weatherseal it better than before.

the last thing we did was to relocated the southeastern hydrangea. when i first transplanted the hydrangea a few years ago, i never thought it'd grow so large. our plan was to move it back 2ft, so we can grow some perennials in front while the hydrangea can grow all it wants in the back. it took a while to get it out of the ground: for the most part it had shallow fine roots, but there were also a few thicker taproots that either needed to be dug out completely or simply severed. once that was done, we needed to dig a new hole. the job was made more difficult by the discovery of bamboo rhizomes, which i had to dig up first. after planting the hydrangea in its new home, i mulched it with some shredded leaves.

my father had his own project, repairing the cable for his baofeng recharging station. one of the plug prong was loose and when he cracked open the plug yesterday, we discovered wires were soldered to the prongs and one of the wires had become loose. when my father tried to solder it back in place it wouldn't work. so today he ended up finding a spare plug and soldering that into the "brick" housing. i brought my headlamp so he could have some work light.

when my mother left on her walk, the colts-bills game was 14-0 in indianapolis' favor. i was too busy with yard work to watch the game, but when she came home and turned on the tv, she was shocked to find the score 41-7. was this the same buffalo team who was supposed to win the AFC east? bills ended up losing, which catapulted the patriots into first place in the division. in other football-related good news, the 8-2 titans lost today as well to the 1-8 texans (patriots face the titans next sunday). pretty much the teams that expected to win all lost today: packers (8-2), steelers (5-3), cowboys (7-2).

after dinner i motorcycled home. i was expecting it to be cold but it was just 48 degrees, downright balmy, especially since i wore my thermal underwear again.