we left for our supply run a bit after noontime. we took the honda - which had been parked in the driveway for weeks. it made a distressing loud thumping sound in the rear back wheel. my father said it was nothing to worry about, said it was just rusty brake pads. he was ready to continue driving but both my mother and i thought there was something seriously wrong with the car so we turned back and took the toyota instead.
we decided on a waltham supply run today, as both the costco and market basket are in close proximity to one another. the waltham costco wasn't too crowded, i think we got there after the last wave of customers had already left. we were there primarily to source our eggs and a few cafe staples, like ketchup.
next came market basket. they had everything we needed except for chicken legs, though we have a few packages in the cafe freezer. my father also got ground pork (in sausage consistency) to make zhajiang noodle sauce.
we stopped at the cafe by 2pm to drop off the supplies. my mother went to visit my sister and to check on hailey's progress. my sister called my mother earlier, said hailey was now peeing blood, as she continues to deteriorate until my sister will have no choice but to put her dog to sleep. i went even to go see hailey, but only because i had to pick up a set of salt and pepper shakers that was delivered to my sister's address.
we returned to belmont by 2:45pm. my father and i went outside to do yardwork. he was mowing the lawn while i continued digging out any crabgrass i saw. i also turned the compost pile with a pitchfork, which is both strenuous and dirty, but needs to be done otherwise the pile of wet grass clippings will rot and smell awful. the weather this week appears to be dipping into the 70's, which is ideal grass growing weather. i don't think we need to reseed any parts of our lawn, but we definitely need to overseed and patch up some bare spots.
i checked for the monarch butterfly caterpillar but couldn't find it anywhere on the milkweeds. i finally did spot it hiding on the underside of the milk crate stand. was it doing that because it fell off the milkweed? or was it looking for a suitable place to turn into a chrysalis? someplace that was both safe and shady? my father suggested we move it back onto the milkweed but i said to leave it alone, figured the caterpillar knows what it's doing. if it does turn into a chrysalis, i'll move it to someplace where i keep an eye on it. if it turns into a butterfly inside the milk crate, it'll be trapped.
my father moved our 100W solar panel to the basement entrance so it can charge our 35Ah sealed battery. the two lithium batteries he can charge with the DC variable power supply, which can charge up to 30V and 10A. that's actually what he's been doing, until i discovered the small 10A MPPT solar panel controller that's safe for LiFePO4 batteries. our second 100W solar panel is arriving on thursday anyway. the 35Ah battery in the basement needs the solar panel more because that powers our 12v on-demand rain barrel pump, which we use all the time. as a whim we tested the 50W flexible panel: it's still not working right.
i had some watermelon slices when i got back inside the house. market basket is having a sale this week, $5.99 for a watermelon, i'll probably get one of my own this week.
for dinner my father cooked a stirfry using some blue beans and shredded chicken breast. we're still not sure what bean family these blue beans belong in, but they resemble romano beans, which are a type of flat beans. they are a variety of Phaseolus coccineus, which are different than the long beans we also grow (Vigna unguiculata subspecies sesquipedalis), so there's no chance they will interbreed to create hybrid beans, so when we collect the seeds in the fall, the beans will grow true for next season. we drank the bottle of $10 imported iranian mojtaba pomegranate juice (persian). it's not even 100% juice, but at least 25%. it tasted good, not tart, sweet but not too sweet, and i thought i tasted a hint of cane sugar juice as well.
originally i was going to spray some fungicide on the osmanthus and the powdery mildew that seems to be affecting all the squash leaves. but i knew it was going to rain, so i decided to wait until after, unlike the last time when rain quickly fell after a sprayed, basically washing all the fungicide away. it rained a little bit during dinner, and i thought maybe that was it, but the doppler radar showed a large batch that spontaneously generated somewhere in worcester, fast moving its way to boston. i was going to wait it out at first, but then realized i could probably outrun the storm, get home before it rains.
i left by 7pm. the sky was actually sort of bright but still overcast. behind me was a looming mass of darkness, but it was far enough away that i never felt i was in danger of getting drenched. when i did get home, i thought about putting the cover on the bike but the doppler radar showed just a blob of activity, so i figured it'd sweep by cambridge fast.
in the meantime i took some glamour shots of my new salt and pepper grinders with the softbox lights. the grinders are actually quite large, taller than a soda can. the one with the black plastic lid was $4, the stainless steel lid was cheaper at $3.85. i should've realized they might be jumbo-sized given how pricey they were, but amazon sold the same items for much more. there was actually a model that was even taller, i'm glad i didn't get that type.
it started to rain while i was in the bathroom. not a little bit of rain, but a heavy downpour, beating against the back of my air conditioner unit (which reminds me, i'm definitely taking it down this week). that little blob of a storm grew bigger once it reached boston. i'm glad i didn't spray my fungicide. i'm glad for the rain, which will water our lawn for free after we cut it today.