after stopping by the community garden to water my plants, i rode to porter square to get another skein of green yarn for my mother (red heart hunter green). i had a 20% off coupon lined up, but apparently all yarns are currently 30% off at michael's. i then went to the cafe to start my saturday helping out at the shop.

with the weather so nice, you'd think it'd be a busy day, but it was actually a slow day. just 17 transactions, mostly drink orders. we did have one online order but it was a delayed order and the customer wasn't due to pick up her order until 2 hours later. my parents stopped by briefly, after their framingham acupuncture appointment they went to baifu in south boston to get some supplies (like frozen beef shank for the beef noodle soup and a new boba tea flavor - red guava). my father dropped my mother back at the house before returning to the cafe to do some food prep for next week.

since it wasn't too busy and my father was there for the time being, that gave me time to go over to my sister's place and prune her massive rhododendron bush. it's gotten so large it's eclipsing the front of the house. i trimmed off 3 refuse bins of branches and leaves, but this is only part 1 of a multi-part series. the bush needs another aggressive pruning, like removing another third from the top. maybe that'll be something i do next wednesday, weather permitting.

i pruned for an hour - from 1pm to 2pm. i even saw michael, who waved to me from his car when he passed by. the girl from upstairs also helped me, pruning the larger branches into smaller pieces to fit the bins, before she went back inside the house.

my father left again around 2pm. i stayed with my 2nd aunt and sister until closing time at 4pm. after doing some clean-up, i finally left by 4:40pm, heading to my parents' place.

there wasn't a lot of time for gardening, so i did an inspection of the backyard with my father. all the squash seeds we've planted have germinated, both in the ground and pots. we now have too much squash, which will hopefully make up for planting them so late in the season. we had so many seedlings that i pulled up the protective cages, no longer afraid that rabbits might eat them since we have plenty more seedlings to spare.

speaking of rabbits, we spotted a small bunny in RB2. even at that age they're pretty elusive, and i chased after it before it disappeared underneath the rain barrel behind the garage. i don't mind rabbits in the yard (can't seem to keep them out anyway) as long as they don't eat my vegetables. eat the grass and the clovers all you want, i actually welcome it, but the moment a rabbit decides to eat my seedlings, i will do all i can to drive them out.

my father trimmed off some garlic scapes from RB0 while the garlic scapes in the other beds still need to grow a bit longer before we can harvest them. for dinner i had some thick noodles in a mushroom & smoked ham broth. my father also pan-fried some pork chops which i ate with ketchup.

before i left, i helped my father order a plastic-metal picnic table from amazon ($200). they'd seen one earlier (lifetime brand), not only is it lighter than a traditional picnic table, but it's also foldable for easy storage. it's not expected to ship until 1-2 weeks, but checking some other websites showed that they're all backordered or currently unavailable, so i'm not optimistic we'll actually get one. our backup plan is to just simply get a wooden picnic table that we piece together.

riding home, i got as far as 3 blocks before i turned right back around. the sky looked promising, like there might be a colorful sunset, so i grabbed my drone and launched it into the air from the backyard to get some photos. it was okay, but not the spectacle i was hoping for. once i regained my drone, i continued on my way to cambridge, finally getting home by 8:45pm.