because i went to bed last night at 10pm and woke up this morning at 9am, i ended up sleeping 11 hours. every once in a while i need a full recharge, as i typically only just get 6-7 hours of sleep a night (which i don't think is enough). normally i wednesdays i go out for a morning run, but i didn't have time today, as i needed to get to belmont to grow some grass.

i left around 9:40am, stopping first at speedway to get some gas, but arriving at my parents' place around 10am.

i started by launching my drone into the air so i can get a before and after photo of the lawn. what i didn't count on was my pixel 3XL (which i use to fly) out of juice. i charged it up enough to pair it with the controller, but then i had to upgrade the app first as it wouldn't work anymore. only then - 10:30am - did i get airborne. from the sky it's very obvious how dry the lawn is, indicated by patches of yellow. i could also see neighboring lawns. those that are still green obviously have lawn sprinklers, it's the okay way. we weren't even the worst lawn, there were neighbors with far worse, don't know if they're doing anything to rescue their dry lawn.

i drove to home depot to get top soil and grass seeds. i also got some graphite valve stem packing to fix the leaking outdoor faucet. i used a regular shopping cart to haul 8 bags of topsoil (at 40 lbs each) which very nearly broke the cart (i should've used a flatbed cart instead). i came back by around 11am.

the instructions for the grass seed is to use a spreader to sprinkle the seeds onto the lawn. but a tip matthew gave us is to mix the seeds with some soil, which gives better germination. i didn't think i'd need all 8 bags of topsoil but by day's end i didn't think 8 bags would be enough. two bags went into leveling the strip of grass along the curb, which hasn't been the same since the town removed the dying maple tree, and that area still has a very noticeable dip. the three sections of the front lawn needed a bag of soil mixed with grass seeds. the sidewalk grass needed another bag. one more bag was mixed with grass seeds to fill any additional bare spots. that left just one last bag for all the areas in the backyard.

besides filling bare spots with the grass/topsoil mixture, i also did spread some more grass seeds with the drop spreader, an attempt at overseeding the existing lawn. after i sprinkled on the seeds, i (tried to) raked it into the soil.

shrinkflation also hits the grass seed. the scotts turf builder sun & shade grass seed i got last season was a 7 lbs. bag. this year that's shrunked to 5.6 lbs. not only that, but the new bag isn't all grass seeds like it was before. it has fillers which it advertised as "root-building nutrition" which is just fertilizer pellets.

i spent some time erecting barricades using tomato cages and string, so people won't walk through the grass growing areas. only then did i finally water the lawn, 10 minutes per area. hopefully it'll rain tomorrow so i can get a free day of watering.

at 2pm i went ahead and installed the new windshield on my motorcycle. it's really a two person job. if i had help, i could've done it in just 5 minutes. but working solo, it took me nearly an hour. i had to get the screw through the shim plate into the spacer then finally the nut on the other side. i ended up scratching the black matte paint on the windshield brackets with the aluminum spacers, which apparently have sharp burry edges. when i finally finished, it looked pretty good, all shiny and new.

moving onto the backyard, i'd already sprinkled some grass seed/top soil mixture onto the bare spots in the back lawn. i also raked the mixture. before i watered though, i transplanted a few foxgloves growing around RB0 and moved them to either the space behind the garage or underneath the grapevines. hopefully they'll have time to get established before the cold winter comes. foxgloves are pretty hardy though, especially at that size, so i'm not too worried.

i then hand watered the lawn and the garden area with rain barrel water. i noticed the pressure was a little weak, not sure if it's because of the pump (maybe the filter needs to be cleaned out) or a problem with the hose. or maybe i've gotten used to the full town water pressure of the outdoor faucet.

once all of that was done (4pm), i launched the drone again into the air to get some after photos.

i got back home around 4:30pm. even on my day off, i still nearly worked a full day doing lawn maintenance. it was already too late to go for a run, and i realized i didn't eat or drink anything all day. i went to star market to get more chicken thighs, and to get some white peaches. they only had yellow peaches (which i bought anyway). there was also a sale on polar 1L drinks, so i got some half & half and orange dry soda.

too lazy to make anything to eat, instead i heated up a bag of microwave popcorn and made a fruit smoothie which tide me over until dinnertime. despite working all day, i wasn't the least bit tired, and i didn't get drowsy like i did yesterday (11 hours of sleep will do that to you).

at 8pm i made an oil-based chinese-style hot sauce. i basically followed the recipe i tried back in may using a combination of anaheim peppers and thai chili peppers.

the first time i made this hot sauce i didn't like it. the (sunflower) oil i used had a funky flavor, the sauce was on the sweet side, and the hot peppers weren't very hot. this time i tried to change it up a little bit. i used canola oil, which has a more neutral flavor. i still used anaheim peppers and thai chili peppers, only because those are what's available here. if i want to make my own hot sauce, i really should grow my own red hot peppers since they're hard to come by here. i used frozen thai chili peppers which probably isn't the best since they seemed all dried up - nothing but skin and seeds. if i was to make this hot sauce again, i'd definitely get fresh thai chili peppers.

i taste tested the sauce while i was simmering it. the peppers and garlic alone had zero flavor, maybe some sweetness from the peppers, just an oily spiciness that wasn't very tasty. the original recipe called for infusing some sichuan peppercorn in the hot oil; i decided to add some peppercorn oil instead. that stuff is pretty potent, a little goes a long way. when i added just a tbsp, i couldn't taste it at all, so i added another tbsp, which i still couldn't taste. that makes me think you probably don't need to add it.

i added more salt than sugar this time. with salt alone it's pretty good - it really brings out the flavors - but the sugar softens the edges and gives it complexity. i also added some citric acid this time. i immediately regretted it, because it made the hot sauce tart - not sour. that's kind of a weird flavor for a hot sauce. thankfully the longer i simmered the less you could taste the citric acid.

the final result was okay, very similar to what i made back in may. i filled up two jars - one small, one big. i'll bring it to the cafe tomorrow to let my mother have the final taste test.

it was 9:30pm before i finally started making dinner. i had some fresh pasta i bought a week ago that i needed to eat - prosciutto & cheese tortellini. it sounds delicious, but the only thing i could really taste was just the cheese, every once in a while i'll get something chewy which apparently is the prosciutto. in my experience, the best way to eat prosciutto is raw; when you cook with it, it loses a lot of it flavor.