my thanksgiving cactus have started to bloom. i have very good luck with these plants, and the cooler temperature of my kitchen plus the addition of some sunlight keeps them happy. i used to have a larger plant but i kept it outside one summer with bad drainage and a lot of the pieces rotted. star market is selling some small potted versions but with yellow flowers i'm tempted to buy.
on my run i saw somebody had left a cabbage patch doll out on the sidewalk for free. tell a kid in the 80's that in the future people would be throwing out a much sought after cabbage patch and they wouldn't believe you. running in the sun felt really nice, i can't imagine there'd be too many days like the rest of the year.
i made a bagel egg ham sandwich for lunch. i forgot to add a slice of american cheese. i bought a package of ham ends because i only wanted a little bit of ham, but didn't want the thin slices of the deli meats. i like that they're smoked so they have plenty of flavor, but they're hard to cook because the pieces are too thick, even after i trimmed them down.
around 1pm i took the bike down to the community garden to clean up my plot. the cold weather had already killed off everything with the exception of the monkshood. the temperature was in the 60's by that point, i wore jeans and a t-shirt. david showed up as well while i was there. we chatted about china, US foreign policy, and the israeli bombing of gaza. i ended up trimming all the dead vines, stacking all my tomato cages, and stacking my grow bags. at one point another fellow gardener - first year eliza - came by and offered us some surplus parsley. i left by 2:30pm, tying down 3 milk crates with some bungie netting and carefully biking home. i bumped into paul while i was putting the milk crates away in the basement.
my original plan was to go to market basket to buy a thanksgiving turkey (beat next week's rush). but my mother added a whole bunch of other things the cafe needed, and there was no way i could carry all of it back on my bicycle. so my mother told me not to bother, that my father would go himself in the afternoon. but i saw he'd never left the cafe, so i called my mother back and i told her i'd attempt to gather everything from the supermarket. she said it wasn't necessary, and that my father would go make a supply run tomorrow morning.
it came time to refill my CO2 generator tank. i noticed it finally stopped producing bubbles yesterday. so my initial batch of CO2 last more than 2 months, which isn't bad. before refilling though, this was a good time to clean the aquarium. it wasn't too difficult, there's hardly any algae in the tank, despite the CO2 injection. that means all my plants are using up the nutrients before the algae can get to them. i cleaned the filter medium: not having to add activated carbon meant i simply had to just rinse out the sponges. i siphoned out a bucket of water and saved them in plastic bottles so i can use them to water my houseplants. finally i added 20 drops of acurel F water clarifier. i used to have a bottle but couldn't find it anymore (maybe it dried up and i tossed it out). it works lik magic, turning my cloudy aquarium water clear in a matter of minutes.
the CO2 tank still had CO2 but there wasn't enough pressure to push the bubbles out of the underwater diffuser. i turned the needle valve completely on to let the remaining gas escape before unscrewing the top. some users have said the top can get stuck but i had no problem unscrewing it.
i poured out the content which was just this slightly viscous liquid; that's actually a good sign that all the ingredients were used up completely, no leftover crystals. the built-in filter of the cap was completely dry. i took it apart and added some clear desiccant pellets. it's not something that came with the the kit i bought (and funny enough, the confusion and subsequent contacting of amazon support was what got me a second CO2 generator kit for free), but i see it in other CO2 generator kits, so i decided to add some for additional filtration (will supposedly keep moisture out of the filter, which judging from my first run, doesn't seem to be a problem).
i measured out 200g of citric acid, 200g of baking soda, and 300g of water. the baking soda took a while to prepare, because the leftover package i had were in large solid chunks due to moisture exposure. i used a meat tenderizer and a plastic cutting board to crush the chunks back into powder form. it felt like working in a drug lab, i'm sure if anyone saw me through my kitchen window it would've looked totally suspicious. afterwards my hands looked tenderized from repeatedly pressing down on the tenderizer.
when i was pouring the citric acid into the generator tank, some of it got stuck in the threads and i had to clean it out. citric acid is weird in that it comes in these tiny crystal pellets look semi-wet and tend to stick to things. next i poured in the baking soda before adding the water. i quickly screwed the cap on and gently swirled the bottle to mix all the ingredients. it took less than a minute for the pressure to build up to 200 psi. the instructions said it'd take 10 hours for maximum pressure to be achieved.
i connected everything back and turned on the solenoid valve. at first i thought it wasn't working, but once the pressure inside the rubber tubing built up (i could see the air bubble getting pushed to the check valve), it finally released a dense stream of tiny CO2 bubbles into the aquarium. i adjusted the needle valve so there was a bubble for every 2 seconds. by then the pressure had reached 220 psi. 2 hours later it was up to 280 psi. the instructions said it'd take 10 hours to fully build up the pressure.
around 7:30pm i decided to throw a frozen chicken alfredo dinner in the oven while i jumped into the shower. i came out of the bathroom to get get something and noticed an acrid smell coming from the kitchen. when i turned on the lights, smoke was billowing out of the oven vents. i quickly opened the window and ran 3 different fans and an air purifier to get rid of the smoke that had engulfed my kitchen and was now going into the other rooms.
what happened was drippings from the lasagna i made tuesday night had landed on the bottom of the oven and was now charred and smoking. it was too hot to remove the bottom panel until the oven had time to cool. once it did, i took everything out and washed them (including the grills). i also washed the inside of the oven which was splattered with charred bubbling food residue. once everything was cleaned, i put everything back and continued baking my dinner. that little bit of drama took 40 minutes which meant i did eat dinner until 9:30pm. despite my best effort, the burnt food smell still lingered throughout the house. it'll probably take a few days to clear out.