i was surprised that xiaowu came early, given his track record of always arriving late (if at all). the cost to install the new gas hot water tank was $175, but my father gave him $200, on the account that he came on a sunday morning. he used pressed copper fittings, so no need for soldering. if anything, he did too good a job, as the water was now piping hot, so we had to turn it down. i asked my father if there were any issues draining the old tank, because last night when we tried it, it didn't seem like it was emptying. he said when he ran the pump again this morning, the tank emptied after a few more minutes. moving the old tank upstairs wasn't too difficult with the hand truck: we moved a step at a time, my father pulling from the top, while i was pushing from the bottom and making sure the tank didn't fall back down the steps. i thought we were going to put the tank out on the curb, but my father said xiaowu knew a guy who dealt in scrap metals, and would be happy to take the used tank off of hands for free.
in belmont my mother made noodles for lunch. after that my father and i were outside doing yard work. first thing we did was to check on the on-demand pump. it wasn't working yesterday after it'd been soaked all day. but today when we plugged it back, it was working again. i actually had hoped the pump was broken so we could get a replacement; i had my eyes on this 5.5gpm 12v 5-chamber vevor pump for $60. next we staked the squash plants, which had been growing rampant in the raised beds like crazy, but we want to train them to grow upwards, to maximize our grow space. so using a combination of u-posts and bamboo poles (which we have plenty of) and twine, we managed to rig up a squash scaffolding, tying the squash vines to the bamboos. they don't look very impressive now, but once the squash have a week or two to grow, it'll look pretty amazing. it was also raining a little bit while we worked, but nothing major, and stopped soon afterwards, with the sun coming out.
my mother was going out for a walk before we could finish, so we stopped for the time being so we could join her. she wanted to get some lahmajun from one of the armenian/middle eastern watertown bakeries. we stopped by super vanak first, where my mother bought her senna tea as well as some golden raisins. next door cafe vanak was packed with customers, and many more were sitting outside. my father's foot was hurting and he was talking about returning home, but my mother and i managed to talk him into continuing the walk. we made it down to mt.auburn street, but all the markets were closed on sundays, including arax market now observing summer hours. the field trip was a bust as we made our way back to belmont. my father wanted to check out upland access road, which put us back out onto mt.auburn street. across the street was roksana market which was opened, so my mother and i went inside while my father sat outside. they didn't have any lahmajun so we left the place empty-handed. i was tempted to get some turkish delights, but a lot of their stuff didn't have prices, so i wasn't sure how much they cost.
along the way we saw a lot of cool vegetation. many people had grapes, and all their grapes were much larger than our grapes. we sampled some white mulberries at the end of upland access road. on the corne of hillside and rangeley was a much large mulberry, shedding sweet black berries all over the sidewalk.
we made it back to the house by 3pm. along the way we found some discarded pots somebody had left on the curb. my father and i continued training the squash vines. he harvested another batch of japanese red mustard to open up some sunlight for the pepper and eggplant seedlings i planted weeks ago. while he was pruning the grapevines, i started grilling the frozen buffalo wings. i used a meat thermometer to make sure the chicken was done, but the temperature wouldn't go up, so i ended up overcooking the wings to the point where some of them were blackened. i think the manual meat thermometer is actually broken, i'm going to get a digital one for the house.
my mother made fried rice for dinner. because we'd just had grilled buffalo wings an hour ago, my father wasn't hungry so didn't eat his rice. i left a bit after 7pm.
after dropping off my stuff at home, i walked down to the community garden to do some work in my plot. i removed all the dead chive flowers and trimmed the goldenrods. i then watered my plants even though it didn't need it given all the rain that fell recently. i got back home a bit after 8pm.