there was no hurry to get to belmont, and i figured i'd wait a bit longer for the rain to clear out. i backed up some photos and stayed until almost 11am before i finally left, taking the motorcycle. traffic was very light, hardly any cars on the road. when i got to my parents' place, i had a pork floss pastry for breakfast before my mother talked us into going to ocean state job lot, where she said there was a 20% discount.
we got to the waltham OSJL by 11:50am. there was no sale. i bought a small porcelain pot ($3) for my pennywort, and some green garden stakes ($2/piece). my mother bought a new welcome mat to replace the deteriorated one they currently use. they also had some cheap ($3.99/each) plastic trays with compartments we could use for our in-store bento, but need to consult with my sister first.
we returned home by 1pm. my father was busy tying new squash vines to our bamboo stakes. he also put up new stakes that spans rb4 to an preexisting trellis between the overgrown quince bush and lilacs.
i brought out the gardenia from the basement. i've decided to grow it outside, even though i said this year i'd keep it in the basement, as gardenia don't like to be moved, and react to sudden changes in climate by dropping flower buds. at this point i don't care anymore, since not a single flower bud has blossomed yet. growing unnaturally in the basement for nearly 9 months, new leaves on top of the plant are abnormally big (since they're closer to the grow light), while the leaves on the bottom stay small. also, despite weekly spraying, mealybugs continue to appear, and being outside in the elements with pressure from natural predators seems like the only way to keep the pests under control. i read gardenias love humidity above all else, and it's simply not humid in the basement, especially since my mother turned on the dehumidifier a few weeks ago. i'm hoping living outside will finally induce the flowers to bloom. once the buds blossom or fall off, then we can prune the plant and let it grow a few months before it has to go back to the basement grow room again.
after spraying the gardenia with a new solution of neem oil, i placed it on the picnic table underneath the maple tree, but in a clearing where it can still get a bit of sunlight, though remaining in the shade. i'll leave it there for a week to see how it does, before deciding to relocate it to someplace sunnier. last year it lived in the space between RB3 and RB2. it did well, but dropped most of its flower buds.
i tried moving my pennywort to the new pot i bought today. unfortunately the pennywort was just too large, and wouldn't fit in the new pot. i ended up moving the pennywort to a larger plastic pot for the time being.
my father also trimmed the grape vines again, just a minor touchup, removing branches that don't have any grapes attached to them, so the vines can concentrate all their resources in the grapes themselves. later in the season, when the grapes start to ripen, we'll prune more of the leaves to expose the grapes to sunshine, which i read is key for sweeter grapes. while inspecting the leaves for diseases, i spotted something else: a colorful orange/white caterpillar with black strips and spots. i've seen this one before, but took me a while to id: it's the caterpillar of an eight-spotted forester moth. foresters are one the rare moths that behave like butterflies and are active during the daytime, not night. i'd never seen a forester before myself, but i've seen their caterpillars on the grapevines every now and then. i decided to leave the caterpillar for the time being. if it causes too much damage, i could always move it to some virginia creeper, another host plant.
i wasn't expecting it to rain much but it seemed to have rained the most out of the past few days (not including overnight rains). we had to go inside at one point because it was raining so badly. that turned out to be a good thing, because new hispanic neighbors adjoining our backyard were super loud with their 4th of july festivities, loud enough that you could hear them from several blocks. however the rain finally managed to break up their party, as they all retreated indoors. when the rain finally stopped around 6pm, they were all back out again, as loud as ever. fortunately we have tree barriers to keep us from seeing them.
when the rain finally stopped around 6pm, my father and i grilled two bags of wings on the barbecue. all the rain and humidity caused the starter to malfunction so my father used a long utility lighter to ignite the propane. midway through, the tank went empty, and we had to replace it with another semi-filled tank. the barbecue itself needs an overall, a lot of parts to replace. we almost never clean it (last time was september 2021), other than occasionally scrub the grill with a brush. it actually wasn't that long ago (october 2021) that we replaced the burner/crossover tubes and plate shields; the ignitor last longer, replaced back in september 2018.
half the grilled wings we saved for ourselves while the other half we brought to my sister's godmother's place, where we were watching the 4th of july fireworks for the 3rd year in a row. we left a bit after 7:35pm, got there by 8pm after finding free street side parking two blocks away from the apartment building. my sister was already there, but she wasn't staying for the fireworks, was just there early to eat before she left. even though we didn't plan on having dinner there, none of us had dinner yet, so it turned out well that my sister's godmother prepared dinner food for everyone. my sister's godmother prepared a bowl of chongqing-style malatang. she also went to chinatown earlier and bought some braised duck for my mother.
this year was different, as my aunt and matthew were joining us to watch the fireworks. they weren't due to arrive until 9pm, but then my father called them and said there was food, so they came a bit early.
neighbors were already having their own fireworks display hours in advance of boston's fireworks. coming in northeast of where we were, either from the roosevelt towers or possibly donnelly field, was a steady stream of decent fireworks that started as soon as it got dark enough (8pm) and lasted well after we left (11pm).
it wasn't raining, but the sky wasn't particularly clear, and a fog started to develop later into the evening, so much so that the tops of the prundential and hancock tower were obscured. when 10:30pm came around, we turned off the lights but left the tv on so we could hear when the fireworks began. my aunt was impatiently waiting, kept mistaking the local fireworks for the boston ones.
when the boston fireworks finally started, they were unmistakable. unfortunately they were also mostly obscured by the fog. only the bottom quarter was visible at best. it did make for some dazzling fog, as the clouds light up with the different colors of the fireworks.
by 11pm it was all over as we filed into the elevator and headed back down to the foyer. it took a while for us to navigate out of cambridgeport, as people leaving the fireworks were now crowding into the streets. once we got onto memorial drive it was smooth sailing. the fog got even thicker, descending to ground level by this point.
we got back to belmont by 11:30pm, i grabbed my things and returned home, riding in the fog.