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i showed up at belmont around 10am this morning. after having some pan-fried egg pancake for breakfast, i pushed the gas lawnmower out of the garage and mowed the front lawn. i even went over the reseeded bed, riding by quickly as to not crush the new emerged grass seedlings. my father then mowed the backyard while i moved around various plant stands and potted plants. there were two bunnies in the backyard, we kept seeing them scurrying from various hiding spots. small rabbits do cause damage as well, but it's something i can tolerate. besides, they're impossible to keep out from the yard anyway, but i have a feeling they were born here, and somewhere in the backyard is another rabbit nest.

we went out for a crucial supply run, since we won't be able to do it next weekend as we'll be in flushing, so we basically need to get 2 weeks worth of supplies. first stop was the waltham costco a bit after noontime. today being juneteenth, a lot of people had the day off so the place was more crowded than usual, but not too crazy. that a feeding frenzy of consumerism doesn't devolve into utter chaos is a hallmark of a civilized society and makes me think there's hope for the US after all, when both liberals and conservatives can at least come together in one place and shop in relative harmony.

next was the waltham market basket, crowded as well. i spent some minutes depositing seltzer cans before meeting up with my parents inside. i lost my parents at one point, and since my father didn't bring his phone, i couldn't call him. i finally found them already close to checking out.

we left waltham by 1:20pm, taking the relatively new route of I-95 then onto route 2 to get into cambridge. though longer by distance, it's actually faster than our usual route, since it's mostly highway. we dropped everything off at the cafe before returning to belmont by 2pm.

my mother bought herself a lobster roll while leaving my father and me to share cranberry chicken salad roll.

soon afterwards i was back outside, as my gardening work wasn't done yet. i moved out the gardenia from the basement and sprayed it with neem oil to get rid of some returning mealybugs. it's staying alive in the basement but it's not really growing. flower buds have stayed the same size for weeks. i afraid to move it because it might drop the flower buds, but basement conditions aren't conducive to blooming. for one thing they need high humidity. this weekend i noticed my parents have turned on the basement dehumidifier, so that's not going to help the gardenia. dropped flower buds be damned, i'm very tempted to move the gardenia outside for the summer. it's supposed to have flowering in may and june and we're almost july and so far zero flowers.

i mixed some fungicide (1.2 tbsp (18ml) of immunox liquid + 0.75 tbsp (2.25 tsp) of captan powder + 1/2 gallon of rain water) and sprayed the grape vines. according to my records, the last time i sprayed was may 30th. if that's true i'm long overdue, as i'm supposed to spray every 7-10 days, especially during the key flowering period which is now. maybe that's why some grapes look a little wilted, and possibly diseased. keeping grapes seem to be more trouble than their worth. maybe we convert that jungle gym trellis to something else, like for wisterias.

i mixed a bucket of acid-loving fertilizer and asked my father to water the jasmines, gardenia, and osmanthus. he also did some major pruning on two large jasmines (one arabian, one belle of india) and two medium jasmines, cutting them down to bare branches, after noticing they don't flower as much as they used to, and when they do flower, the blossoms are tiny. here's hoping that the severe cut will induce the plants to produce a flourish of new shoots, which will give us more flowers. if this is successful, we'll drastically prune the other remaining jasmines this way as well.

finally we divided some pileas (chinese money plant). just 3 plants give us more than a dozen baby plants, and our remaining stock are all the same condition, multiple babies. we have so many, my father has decided to sell them at the cafe.

we went back inside by 5pm. my parents made dumplings for dinner, my mother using the garlic chive we sorted on saturday to mix in with some ground pork. she said it wasn't enough (there's plenty more at the cafe, we just forgot to bring it back) and went out into the backyard trying to find some more leftover garlic chives.

i returned home by 8pm. i was in the kitchen cleaning the oil splatter from my range before using the bathroom and taking a shower.