checking on my grow closet, i noticed more seeds have sprouted, to the point where i can turn on the grow lights and run the fans. i noticed a long bean seedling on tuesday, and many more today. some bitter melons have also germinated, to the point where a few had grown leggy due to the lack of light. finally, a few blue beans have also sprouted.
my mother called me before i left the house. she asked me to bring my computer so my sister can pay her taxes. i only did them quickly yesterday just to figure out how much she might owe. normally my sister does her own taxes, but i helped her last year because she'd messed up all her figures. this year she couldn't even be bothered to do them anymore, and said she'd pay the figures i got. my mother also told me the front lawn faucet sprang a leak this morning, leaking from the faucet stem, which is a bonnet packing issue. they had no way to shut it off so my father turned off the water main before they left for the cafe.
i biked to belmont to do some gardening around 11:30am. i didn't think i'd be long, but i ended up staying for about 4 hours. temperature was already in the 70's this morning, and supposedly reaching the 80's by the afternoon. normally we don't see our first 80's day until early may.
first order of business was to fix the leaking faucet. i tested the faucet for myself to see the problem, sure enough it was leaking from the stem. turned off the water main and removed the whole cartridge assembly. the packing material i put in last time had been pressed into a dome shape, but it didn't do a good job because there were gaps, which contributed to the leak. i repacked the bonnet, this time doing 5 counterclockwise loops. that didn't work at all, and the leak was even worse. i watched a few youtube videos and repacked the bonnet. this time i looped the packing material onto the stem itself after i screwed it into the faucet assembly before screwing on the bonnet. that seemed to work better, but the faucet was still leaking, although maybe a drop every few minutes. the whole repair took an hour.
i tested the sprinkler to make sure it was still working. the spray seemed a little high (which gets blown away in the wind), so i lowered the pressure and readjusted the sprinkler. it's been 9 days and so far no grass has sprouted yet. is that normal? maybe it needs more watering, instead of just twice a day (10 minutes duration). i did see one or two possible grass seedlings, but i'm still waiting for them to all sprout. 
i looked it up online, it says grass normally takes 10-14 days, so we're almost there.
i brought another empty 2L soda bottle and tried to attach the manual sprayer. it also didn't work. so i decided to remove and inspect the rubber o-ring. turns out there was actually 2 o-rings. once i removed one of them, the sprayer screwed onto the plastic bottle effortlessly and started working again.
i tested the plastic broken 4-way manifold. i sealed the visible crack line with some silicone last year. i screwed it onto the garden hose and turned it on. it exploded in a burst of foamy leaks, it's definitely not fixed. these plastic garden hose splitters aren't very durable, but a new one just costs $8 from OSJL. right now we have enough manifolds for our needs.
the primary reason for being in belmont was to dethatch the lawn so i could apply the crabgrass preventer and fertilizer. i started with the front lawn. while i was doing that though, i got distracted, and started pruning the bushes. i figured once i apply the fertilizer, i won't be able to rake the lawn anymore, so better to get any pruning out of the way, while i'm still able to pick up the branches easily. i didn't think i was working too hard, but i didn't have lunch, and it was starting to get really hot in my jeans. at one point i did feel a little light-headed and felt cold. i went inside to grab something cold to drink, that made me feel better. i only had enough strength to prune the bushes and dethatch the front lawn. the backyard will have to wait until this weekend.
the last thing i did was to water the raised beds and some plants in the backyard. the rhubarb had finally sprouted (didn't see it on tuesday), but rabbit had nibbled away on the tips, so i put a screen around it. signs of sprouting mustards and bokchoi and daikon and cilantro in various parts of the garden; unlike grass seeds, these germinate a lot faster.
i left a bit before 3pm. originally my mother wanted me to stop by the cafe, but i was too tired, and went straight home instead. i spotted some white flowering trees on huron avenue, didn't notice them on tuesday, they must've just bloomed. i thought they were flowering pears at first, but they're actually white blossom cherries.
when i finally got back home, i roasted some asparagus in the oven for a late lunch (salt garlic olive oil marinade 425°F 15 minutes) after i took a shower. they were okay, but asparagus taste the best when they're grilled over the barbecue, that high heat brings out the flavor and makes them more tender. i still have another bunch i'll bring to belmont over the weekend (though not sure if they can be grilled, looks like we're finally seeing rain over the weekend).
when i checked my weather station i was actually surprised by the number: 90 degrees. the official high in boston was upper 80's, some 90 in cambridge isn't out of the question. it's actually a very comfortable 90 because the air is so dry, a good day to hang dry some laundry if you don't mind getting tree pollen on your clothes.
while watching the news about how passports now take at least 3 months to process, i checked my own passport and discovered it expired back in 2021, during the pandemic. i went to go renew it and discovered you could do it online. turns out it was a 3rd party site (not sure if it's a scam), and i ended up inputting a bunch of personal info (like social security number, name and age of my parents, credit card info), before i finally realized it wasn't a legit site. the thing that gave it away was they were going to charge me $60 for a passport and didn't even ask for a photo. i remember it costs something like $120 to renew a passport. that's when i looked at the URL and saw it wasn't the government website. i never completed the transaction though, but some personal info still got leaked. fortunately it's not like they can use my passport info, since it's expired.
i wasn't that hungry after that big asparagus lunch, so i ended up just having some bread and brie later in the evening for dinner.
i checked the grow closet in the evening. all 12 long beans have sprouted. some buttercup squash. some blue beans. a few bitter melons. at least one hyacinth bean. even a single cherry tomato. i'm still running the heat mat for the bitter melon and hyacinth beans. once more of those germinate, i'll finally turn off the mat.