i walked back home and took the motorcycle to my sister's place to see about installing the outdoor eufy security camera. but i thought about it last night, and decided it was still better just to use her eufy indoor camera; something about mounting a conspicuous security camera outside just doesn't sit well with me. i figured at least i could trim some of the rhododendrons, but after adjusting the camera angle, the view wasn't obstructed at all, so i decided to leave everything as is.
i got to my parents' place a bit after 11am. they showed me all the daikon radish leaves they harvested, like a leafy green abattoir in the kitchen. but where was all the daikon radishes? my mother said they left them outside for me to find. i found them in a wooden bowl on the lawn underneath the maple tree: the large one was barely the thickness of a normal carrot and only half as long. what we lacked in actual daikon radishes, we made it for in leafy daikon greens. i blame all that chicken manure we added back in the fall. makes me a little worried that maybe my garlics won't be growing as large as well, despite the biggest stalks i've seen since i've been growing garlics these past 4 years.
my father blended some daikon leaves into a type of banchan. radish leaves are actually used in korean summer kimchi, called yeolmu kimchi. adding two small teaspoons of gochujang to the leaves made them taste even better, totally reminded me of eating in korean restaurants, back when we used to go out to dinner. radish leaves are sort of neutral - might a slight bitter taste at most - but salted and blended with some sauces and spices, they taste great. the best part are the crunchy and juicy stems.
despite temperature reaching nearly 100 degrees (95), my father assembled his stainless steel tent stove and hung out outside in the suffocatingly humid weather. even i didn't want to be outside, despite gardening stuff to do, figured i do them tomorrow. one thing i noticed was all the long beans planted in the raised beds last weekend had germinated, thanks in part i'm sure to to unusually hot weather. my father found his audience when my aunt and uncle came to visit to return the pressure washer they borrowed yesterday. they were also going to dig up some peonies from a garden they saw (the owner offered to exchange rhizomes for weeding labor) but hadn't yet. they stayed for a while, sitting underneath the maple tree's shade, drinking pu'er tea in tropical weather.
around 5pm i got an alert on phone about possible damaging storms heading our way, ETA 30 minutes. i went outside to fly the drone as high as i could to see what kind of clouds there were. across boston, there was a wall of dense darkness, the storm clouds i presume. we could also hear the rumbling of thunder. my father didn't seem phased, and decided to start making dinner, which was double frying some chicken drumstick meat on a pan from his tent stove. my mother came out to help. despite the ominous clouds and incessant thundering, it never did rain in our area. the storms passing south of boston out to sea.
while waiting for my father to finish frying the chicken, i was inspecting some backyard plants and spotted a golden tortoise beetle. i haven't seen one in the area since junior-senior year of high school, it was so startling i still remember it to this day. i went inside to grab my dSLR armed with my 60mm macro lens and snapped as many photos as i could. it didn't help that it was windy and the beetle - perched on a foxglove leaf - was blowing in the wind. i went back inside to grab my tripod but by the time i came out, the beetle was gone.
dinner came in the form of double fried chicken and another serving of radish leaf banchan. i made a spicy korean sauce to brush onto the chicken; that's the secret of keeping double fried anything crispy, is to not slather on the sauce, but rather brush it on almost as a wash in 2-3 passes. the sauce i made was an adaptation: 1 tbsp vinegar, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 1 tsp grated ginger, 2 tbsp corn syrup, 2 tbsp of gochujang. missing was the fish sauce as well as the lemon juice (i substituted with vinegar).
earlier in the afternoon i helped my mother buy more floral wires when the replacement ones i ordered from amazon arrived and turned out they were still the same as the ones i'd returned. we ended up ordering 2mm diameter wires (the ones that'd arrived had 1.2mm diameter). i also helped her pay online the monthly MA meal tax. after dinner i helped my father order the last few missing components of his lithium battery box project: another series 24 battery box (non-vented $10), 5/16" battery junction post connectors (8-pack $18), 6 gauge copper wires with 5/16" and 3/8" copper lug terminals (5ft black, 5ft red, 5 pcs of each type of lugs, shrink wrap $29). everything should arrive by tuesday. i finally returned to cambridge afterwards, close to 9pm.
riding the motorcycle, it was an effortless journey home: no running out of breath, no arriving soaked in sweat. on a warm night like tonight, not riding the bicycle was the better choice. there was a warriors-mavericks game, i had it turned on in the background but i wasn't paying too much attention. instead i was shopping for electric lawnmowers, trying to decide to go with either EGO or ryobi. EGO is the more solid choice, with higher power, and a larger 21" deck, but it's more expensive than the ryobi. for $250 (memorial day sale) we can get a manual-powered ryobi mower (RY401110-Y), but with a 20" deck; an EGO factory refurbished LM2101 still costs $330 via ebay (a model that hasn't seen an update since 2019). i'm leaning towards EGO, but if we want a bargain, ryobi can't be beat, even though from what i've seen, the build quality is kind of flimsy. another thing to consider: there are plenty of compatible 3rd batteries for ryobi, but hardly anyone makes EGO batteries, and when they do, they're super expensive ($200-300).