my father made some oatmeal with leftover golden raisins, along with pan-fried mantou buns. after lunch i went with my mother for a walk. we visited the glacken field pyramid, now covered in blooming perennial wildflowers. it was mostly yellow rudbeckias, with some bee balm and swamp milkweed. we continued walking, heading down fountain terrace to holworthy. i went and saw an open house while my mother stayed outside. the 2022-recently-gutted condo was on the market for $2.5 million.
we made it to the end of holworthy street before we took the cambridge-watertown greenway back. my mother had never been on this trail before, which was pleasantly shady on this rather hot and humid day. from the greenway we went into fresh pond and came out the golf course before returning home. it took us nearly 1-1/2 hours of walking, fulfilling the daily pace quota.
back at the house, my father and i were outside doing yard work. i had my dSLR to take higher resolution photos of our backyard plants. while inspecting the swallowtail caterpillar from yesterday (still here in the chinese celery, but haven't moved since), i noticed a nearby patch of celery looked rather empty. it took me a few seconds to discover that it too had a swallowtail caterpillar! this one was a bit larger, which meant it was older, probably the next instar.
i found batches of eggs on some squash leaves. i didn't know they belonged to, so i didn't get rid of them just yet, in case they were beneficial insects. but then i spotted a squash bug laying some similar eggs. i drowned the squash bug, and removed all the eggs with some duct tape. these eggs are actually brittle and will crunch if you squeeze them, unlike squash vine borer eggs.
my father did some weeding in the western bed, pruned some stray grape vines, and tied up a few more squash vines. i also searched the squash for borer eggs, i found some, but not as many as i'd feared, considering how many squash vines we have. there are however numerous cucumber beetles congregating on the squashes, either hiding in the flowers, mating elsewhere, or feeding on the leaves. leaves that've been chewed by these beetles will wilt, but the damage is fairly localized, unlike when they feed on cucumbers, when the whole plants die.
i remembered to check the barbecue grill, figure out which parts we needed replacing. i removed the grill plates so i could get inside the grill, then removed the heat shield tents to see the burners. i turned on the gas and fired up the grill, the starter worked fine, so i don't need to get a new one. but during the inspection it looked like the carryover tubes need to replaced, as well as some of the burners, which have cracks in them. the heat shields can be replaced too, they're covered in burnt oil and salt, too corroded to try and save, easier just to replace them. i ended up buying a compatible replacement parts kit for $36. my father scraped all the burnt flakes (how can there be so much?) and i scoop most of them out while wearing gloves. we also need to clean the interior with degreasing foam before putting in the new parts, due to arrive on tuesday.
my father and i went back inside the house around 4:30pm. my mother made dinner tonight, some steamed egg and pork mix, after chastising us for forgetting to bring home the chinese celery on saturday. we watched some US open womens golf before switching to the evening news. why are there so many asian women in professional golfing? hawaiian native allisen corpuz ended up winning, the first american woman winner since 2016.
i returned to cambridge by 7pm. i didn't bother covering up the motorcycle, figured the bike was due for a cleaning from the incoming rain that's arriving later tonight. i did however remove the handlebar clock. the weatherproofing isn't so great anymore, and it seems to get wet after every storm. besides that, the watch face gets fogged up with condensation and it doesn't keep accurate time anymore. i removed it so i could repack the watch, maybe that might solve the problem. if not, i'm tempted to put a tiny amount of silicone bead around the perimeter to give it a better seal.
it was 80 degrees inside the house but 73 degrees outside. instead of turning on the AC, i turned on the kitchen window fan, turned the AC to fan setting, turned on the vornado fan, and opened as many windows i could to ventilate the house. unfortunately even after 3 hours of running, it only lowered the room temperature down to 79 degrees. the house itself is simply too hot to cool down any further.