while using the bathroom, i realized the ride begins at 9am and leaves at 9:30am. it pays to get there a little early to get some freebies, like water bottles, bike lights, and snacks. when i stepped outside my house, i saw joel waiting for renee. turns out they were going on the ride as well, so it'll be nice to at least know a few people. i went back inside the house to brush my teeth before getting my trek allant bike from the basement. i finally left by 9:15am, getting to the library in just 5 minutes.
it was a good turn out today, i overheard someone say 150 cyclists, but it felt like a lot more. most people wore helmets, but i purposely left mine at home, figuring we'd be riding so slow with police escorts, there would be no risk of head injuries. we started heading out at 9:30am, but with so many bikers, it took us several minutes before we were all riding.
the ride itself was sort of boring. most of the time i was just staring at the backs of the cyclists in front of me. more interesting was watching the stunned faces of onlookers as they see a convoy of bicycles riding down the street. we went down cambridge street from inman square to cambridge crossing, then through kendall square back to the library, where we continued to danehy park where we stopped. a ride can never be just for the sake of riding, there always has to be some kind of educational component, so at the park someone gave a short talk about the history of danehy park, and how that area of cambridge also used to have a lot of brick works because of heavy clay deposit due to the glaciers.
from the park we started heading back to the library via huron village, harvard square, and memorial drive. we passed within 2 blocks of the cafe, i was tempted to detour to put the tea eggs in the fridge, but ended up not doing that (in hindsight, i should've done it). i followed the convoy back to the library. i was ready to ride home, but realized they were serving sandwiches afterwards, so i stayed for a small roast beef sandwich before finally heading home, getting back by 11:45am.
i packed up my things and took the motorcycle to belmont. i stopped by the cafe briefly to put away the tea eggs into the fridge, and the leftover rice into the freezer.
my parents had just returned from a walk to fresh pond and back, collecting a few more errant golf balls from the golf course. my mother also collected a few berries that she said were hawthorn fruits but they're just large crab apples. they also spotted some chicken wire some neighbors had thrown out so my father and i took the car to retrieve them. these were high quality green vinyl coated chicken wires, if i had to guess 2x25ft in length. they were thrown out as-is, so when we got them back, we flattened them out onto the sidewalk and rolled them back up for future projects.
i went out to the backyard to install the new 4-way garden hose manifold we bought off of temu ($12.57). i placed it on the storage rain barrel closest to the basement dryer vent window, replacing two dual-head garden hose splitters (one plastic, one brass) that we can use elsewhere. it also gave me a chance to re-inspect the rain barrels. i closed a few connectors so i could narrow down where the leak might be. however, all the rain barrels were filled to capacity. i ended up reconnecting all the barrels. i'll check again tomorrow to see the rain water level. maybe the water level last weekend was actually due to not enough rain even though it seemed like it rained all weekend long, and nothing was leaking besides our initial discovery that it was leaking from the water gauge.
my father took down the last of the squash vines, this one growing in the western bed. it had one medium-sized buttercup squash and one small-sized. my parents have either eaten or given away all the other squashes we've harvested so far. squash vines take up so much space to produce so few squashes. plus they require a lot of care, from training the vines, to tying supports for the squashes, not to mention pest prevention from the cucumber beetles, squash vine borers, and this year a heavy squash bug infestation. at least with beans and bitter melons, they don't really get any pests or diseases.
i saw some mustard seedlings in RB0, though still no cilantro yet. i need to plant some more seeds in the other beds, so we can get a fall harvest of cool weather leafy greens. none of our hardy chrysanthemums have bloomed yet, though there are many flower buds.
i went outside to do some drone flying, haven't done that since august. they thing i really wanted to check out was the grove street playground renovations. seems like they'd already renovated it a few years ago, but what's a boondoggle if they can't feeding money in its construction indefinitely? this most recent renovation is to the baseball fields and the basketball court. a few weeks ago they'd completely fenced off the playground, with no sign to say what they were doing. i had to go online and search for information. this latest project will cost the town of belmont close to $1 million. i feel like that money can be spent elsewhere, like repairing roads and planting trees, more useful endeavors.
anyway, i flew the drone above the fenced off field, recently stripped off all the sod. i was trying to fly the drone as low as possible since there was no danger of hitting anyone. the one risk was crashing the drone, and as i got within 80ft off the ground, i noticed i was starting to lose reception, so i didn't dare going any lower than that. i then took a tour of the fresh pond golf course, the belmont farm, some mansions with pools, before flying back home.
i left soon after that. my parents were going to my godmother's place for dinner. i wasn't invited because she doesn't have enough space in her apartment for so many people (her friend and my 2nd aunt were also going to be there). so instead i went back to cambridge around 3pm.
after getting home, i walked down to the community garden to do some pruning. anne marie sent me an e-mail this past week saying that some of my plants were growing a bit out of control, like the garlic chives and the goldenrods. she also told me next year i can't grow my hyacinth beans so high, as apparently there's a 6ft height limit in the garden. tell that to the gardeners growing dahlias right next to my plot, which are easily 7ft high. i borrowed a pair of hedge clippers from the tool shed and cut off all the spent garlic chive flowers. i also trimmed some of the goldenrods so they were falling onto the pathway. for my troubles i received at least two mosquito bites on my arms, though i did manage to kill one of the mosquitoes will it was still feeding. i noticed my monkshood still haven't flowered yet, though there are a handful of flower buds.
i chatted with neal before i left for the garden, about rugby, of which he's a big fan of. apparently right now is the rugby world cup. usual rugby powerhouse of australia hasn't been doing so well. he also told me there's a new england team called the free jacks (i think i've seen them marching in the pride parade), who have a stadium in quincy. coming back from the garden, bumped into my former upstairs neighbor david. he surprised me with some breaking news: the celtics have traded for jrue holiday from the blazer, in exchange for malcolm brogdon and robert williams. not since the the porzingis for smart trade back in late june have i been so shocked. so many players are gone now: marcus smart, danilo gallinari (who never played a single game with the team due to injuries), mike muscala, grant williams, malcolm brogdon, and robert williams. the marcus trade still stings though. even if the celtics do win it all this year, it'd be bittersweet without the heart and soul of the team.
i came home to read up on the latest jrue holiday trade. instead i found another breaking news: the death of red sox knuckleball pitcher time wakefield from brain cancer, after his health condition was outed last week (by curt schilling, without permission). wakefield was part of the 2004 roster that broke the curse and won the world series. he always seemed like a good dude, no drama, sad to hear about his death.
i got back just in time to watch the patriots-cowboys game. it was a humiliating loss, 38-3, belichick's biggest coaching loss. i didn't even watch the second half, after the score was already 28-3. i didn't realize those 3 points would be the only offensive. i'm going to be staying away from any patriots football news until next sunday. let's not kid ourselves: a team with a 1-3 start isn't going to see the playoffs. our only victory was against the jets, and we barely won at that. at least we have the celtics, the only ray of championship hope for boston sports teams.
after a shower i made dinner, luxury korean ramen with my leftover fermented tofu. i timed it so my noodles would be ready just in time for sunday night football between the chiefs and the jets. i was expecting to see new york get completely crushed by the defending super bowl champions. at first it looked that way, but to everyone's surprise, they jets crawled back to tie. zach wilson seemed to be channeling the spirit of aaron rodgers, who was watching the game from the guest box. who else was watching? taylor swift, in her second weekend appearance. i still think she and travis kelce are just friends. speaking of which, how many product endorsements does kelce have anyway? seems like every single commercial has him in it. unfortunately once wilson tied the game, he seemed to regress back to his old bad self, and the jets didn't score after that, despite a few missed opportunities. to their defense's credit though, they held the chiefs scoreless as well, but a 3-point field goal was all it took for kansas city to win, 23-20. zach wilson showed promise, and new york was this close to beating another titan (after they defeated the bills on opening night).