i made a solution of oxi-clean this morning and went outside to spray the green algae off of the wooden house sidings. i thought i could spray and rinse off, but i ended up gently scrubbing with a brush to finally clean the algae. even then, it wasn't 100%, i could still see a little green, but better than before.
today was a calm day compared to yesterday when were driving all over greater boston doing a cafe supply scavenger hunt. i left my house around 11am, biking to belmont, stopping a few times to admire some flowering peaches and cherries. i discovered one of my backyard neighbors has a flowering peach. i also tried to figure out the different between a white flowering pear and a white flowering cherry (cherry blossoms are whiter, tree more round than thin, distinctive cherry blossom petals, and cherry bark). the rain overnight was enough to wash a few flowering cherries of their blossoms. but the same rain seemed to have induced the flowering crabapples to get ready to blossom, as i see several of those trees getting ready to burst into colors.
my father and i worked in the backyard recaulking the rain barrel spigots. a few of them were leaking last year but we couldn't remember which ones, so we decided to recaulk them all. instead of latex-acrylic, we used silicone this time - harder to work with (stickier, more toxic), but better waterproofing and more durable. i had a tube of clear silicone that i didn't think would be enough but ended up being plenty, as we only a small amount per spigot to seal them. we won't know if we were successful until we fill our rain barrels to check.
my father also made new MC4 connectors to replace the ones that were chewed up. these will reattach to our small backyard solar panels, which haven't been active in a few months ever since i discovered they wires were severed by some critter.
i spent the rest of the early afternoon taking some backyard plant photos. i also dug up some shasta daisies to weed them of grass, and applied some duct tape around the base of our cherry and cherry plum trees to prevent ants from climbing up and establishing aphid colonies. i may need to consider though, because as much as dislike aphids feeding on the leaves, they do provide food for ladybug larvaes. i may take off the tape at some point, because i know they will also kill some ladybug larvae that venture down the trunks.
in the afternoon i came back inside to watch the nets-celtics game that started at 3:30pm. unfortunately there was nothing to snack on in the house, not even anything to drink (i ended up drinking tap water, but later upgraded to ice tea). it was a harrowing game, boston always seemed to have the lead, but brooklyn was always without striking distance, and the lead kept changing back and forth. in the final few minutes of the game it looked like the celtics might lose, as the nets pulled ahead to their biggest lead of the game. but the game was close enough that when celtics were down by just a single point in the final seconds, that was still enough time for jayson tatum to get the ball and score to end the game with a victory.
my father made asparagus with applewood-smoked bacon and pork chops for dinner. there was a lot to eat, and we each ended up with leftover pork chops, although we finished the bacon-asparagus as it was cooked in bacon fat and wouldn't taste good as leftover.
i left by 7pm. when i got back home, i put my trek utility in the basement and brought out my fuji speed bike, in preparation for riding into kenmore square tomorrow to catch the marathon. the men elite won't get there until after 11:30am, so i'll probably leave by 11am.
