i went out mid-morning to move my bike outside so i wouldn't be trapped once they start pouring the new cement. one of the contractors told me they were about to leave anyway, but i didn't believe him because it didn't seem like they were done yet. sure enough, they left a few minutes later (which meant i moved the bike for nothing). so after they destroyed the sidewalk, dropped a few safety cones, they were gone. they even took the signs, which said they'd be here tomorrow as well. were they not coming back?
i went to market basket to get some groceries. DPW was gone, but eversource was still here, working on the utility pole across the street, with a police detail. another contractor asked me if i lived here, told me they'd shut down electric service for a hour while they transferred the power lines to the new pole. they had to briefly stop work while i went to get my bike parked underneath the cherry picker.
i went to dollar tree first, to get a scrubbing brush to clean the scales off of the cherry plum tree in my parents' backyard. prices were everywhere. a while back they increased everything to $1.25, but all their kitchen stuff was $1.50.
afterwards i went to market basket. i decided to make hamburgers tonight for dinner. i got a package of "sliders" which is just a fancy word for tiny hamburgers. i'd have to eat 3-4 to equal 2 regular size hamburgers. they also sold some regular size patties but with the high cost of beef, they were too rich for me. the only downside is they don't sell mini burger buns.
i came home to drop off my groceries before i left for the cafe via motorcycle. i got there by 11:30am, ended up staying and working for an hour, making a new batch of tea eggs and activating the xiaomi mi band 9 fit for my 2nd aunt.
i got to belmont around 12:30pm. i bought a market basket italian & provoline "bulky" for lunch and ate while watching the news. i've lived in the greater bostona area for most of my life and never heard of the word "bulky" to describe a sandwich.
i ordered a pair of fulton sawhorse brackets from ace hardware last night ($20). the store in porter square had a pair but when i went to order, there was only one available. another place was the ace hardware in belmont. they too were sold out. i ended up reserving the brackets from swatz ace hardware in newton (watertown street). they were supposed to contact me to let me know my order was ready but they never did. i ended up going to the website to find out my items were ready for pickup. so i went to get my brackets, riding down mt.auburn street, through watertown center, up watertown street. i parked right outside in a metered spot, kept my eye on my bike in case a cop came along to give me a ticket. after i got my order, i made a u-turn and returned to belmont.
today was a nice day, with temperature in the 80's. i was very comfortable in a t-shirt and jeans. one of things i wanted to do at my parents' place was to apply sedgehammer+ on the little piece of front lawn next to garage that's overrun with sedge grass. the instruction said to only apply it when temperature was below 85 degrees. although the ambient temperature was below that, the hot midday sun beating on the lawn made it upwards of 95 degrees, too hot to apply the herbicide. i decided to wait until later, when the sun wasn't so strong, to do the sedgehammer treatment.
instead i did some yard work. i moved all the seedlings onto the sawhorse table underneath one of our EMT conduit trellis. this way we can see how many seedlings we have and formulate a plan to where to plant them. i thinned out the potted basil which sprouted a few weeks ago but hasn't really grown too much. i didn't want toss out the extra basil seedlings so i found another planter and planted 8 additional basil plants. i potted two stevia into slightly larger pots. i heard stevia can grow pretty big, and the recommended pot size is 12" diameter. i still have plenty of stevia seedlings for future transplanting.
i filled a 10 gallon grow bag just to see how much soil i needed. i filled the bottom with a layer of coarse homemade compost, followed by some cambridge city compost. i then filled the rest of the grow bag with a single bag of miracle-grow garden soil. that just about filled it to the top. each grow bag will have one luffa plant.
i watered some plants, including the seedlings and my swiss chard. i weeded RB3, which was full of yellow wood sorrel and grass. while digging in the dirt, i found out that a bunch of rudbeckias were infested with aphids. i made a mixed a bottle of neem oil extract (1 tsp of concentrate to 300ml water) and sprayed the rudbeckias. it didn't look like it did anything, but when i checked afterwards, a lot of the aphids were dead.
i hung the solar edison bulb lights onto our EMT conduit trellis. it used to hang on our raised bed trellis but we've taken those down this season.
i had some neem oil left over so i sprayed the cherry plum, which has a serious oyster shell scales infestation. i'd spray and then scrape off the scales with a hard bristle brush. that seemed to work very well. made me think that maybe all the oyster shell scales i saw were dead? because i did treat the tree with horticultural oil in the early spring. maybe what i'm seeing is just the empty dead shells. i did see a few twice-stabbed ladybugs which i accidentally sprayed. i hope they're okay.
rabbits continue to dig a hole underneath the fence behind the platform ladder. i patched up the hole and put a brick and a large stone over it. but the rabbit managed to dig underneath the brick and stone. so this time folded up a small piece of chickenwire into the hole before filling it back up with soil. let's see how the rabbit responds to that. it just might dig a new hole to the side. in that case we'll need to reinforce all the fence bottoms with hardware cloth.
in the late afternoon i pruned the maple tree. now is not the best time to prune - with the tree already fully leafed out. but we didn't prune everything back in early spring, and there are still tall sections of branches that's eclipsing our lawn, and most importantly, our future trellis garden. armed with the EGO pole saw and pruning loppers, i climbed the platform ladder and started lowering the height of the maple tree. i'd remove some sections, then climb down to clean up all the cut branches, before repeating again. i ended up with 6-7 garden refuse bins full of maple branches. now the backyard has more sun.
while i was pruning, i heard a loud sound hitting the sunroom window, like somebody thwacking it from the inside. i wonder if it was a bird strike, and looked down to see one of the foxglove plants was moving. i went to investigate. sure enough, there was a baby robin knocked semi-conscious. it looked like it was panting, like maybe it was searching for water because it was so hot today. i picked it up and put it in the long rectangular raised bed. i got a pan of cold water and tried to dribble some into its beak but it wasn't drinking. instead it hid underneath the pan, maybe just trying to stay cool.
around 5pm the temperature of the front lawn was 85 degrees and dropping. i mixed some sedgehammer+ in a half gallon spray bottle. one 1/2 ounce packet makes a full gallon, so i decided to make just half a gallon, saving the rest for a future treatment in 6-8 weeks if the sedges come back. i then went out and sprayed that lawn area affected by sedges. i sprayed the patch of sidewalk grass as well, sedgehammer also works to kill giant ragweed.
i went home during rush hour traffic. i would've had better luck riding an ebike, where i could bypass traffic. instead i had to sit and wait on the motorcycle with all the other cars. even though the sun was starting to get low on the horizon, i could still feel its rays beating through the back of my t-shirt.
i got back by 5:30pm. there was no sign outside alerting neighbors about continuing sidewalk repair work, but i didn't dare park in front of the house. i wanted to do some gardening in my community garden plot, but it was already late and i was tired, so i decided to call it a day. i'll do community gardening over this weekend. i stripped out of my sweat-soaked clothes and took a shower.
i had some pita bread with ajvar spread as a snack. i also had some chocolate chip cookies. i checked the cafe's transaction history for the day and saw it was even busier than yesterday. a lot of bento sales, but surprisingly also a lot of beef noodle soup sales (i was there when two japanese ladies ordered 2 beef noodle soup).
when my parents returned home, i called my father to report all the things i did in the backyard today. i also asked him to check on the baby robin. he said it was gone, so hopefully it was okay and managed to fly away. my father restrung the conduit solar lights. they turned on at sunset and stayed on until 10pm. hopefully with a full day's charge tomorrow, they'll stay lit a bit longer.
i was too lazy to make the sliders (which involves using the foreman grill, easy to use, not so easy to clean), so i had a trio of hot dogs instead. i timed it so i could eat and watch game 1 of the NBA finals. most people expected the spurs to win the series. seems like somebody forgot to tell new york yet. knicks started out hot, but midway through the first quarter the spurs got the lead. knicks managed to regain the lead in the second quarter, but the spurs finished the half with the lead. spurs dominated to start the second half, but the knicks picked up their intensity and quickly chipped away at the lead so by the 4th quarter they got the lead back. spurs made one final push to lead briefly, but the knicks clamped down in the final minutes to gain a 10 point lead, winning the game 105-95. i was not expecting this. the knicks are no joke, their game 1 victory in san antonio tells the world they're legit contenders. spurs might have the youthful talent, but the knicks have the veteran experience. game 2 is friday.
i bought some more 10 gallon grow bags off of amazon. originally i just wanted a dozen, but the ones i ordered before wouldn't be able until the middle of next week. we want to plant some plants by this weekend. so i ended up ordering 2 dozen - which for some reason could arrive by friday. it's a little much (although i save $5), but we can give some away, and the grow bags also make for good yarn storage.