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last year around memorial day was when i planted my vegetable garden, and likewise i did the same this year. in my backyard i picked 8 lucky transplant candidates, destined to live out the rest of the summer in a luxurious sunny and well-watered garden: 3 tomatoes, 2 tomatillos, 2 hot peppers, and 1 basil. into a box they went as i walked down to the community garden with temperatures soaring into the 80's. naturally there were other folks in the garden, busy as bees, tending to their plots. first order of business was to pull out all the big weeds by hand. those included celandines (i thought i got rid of them last year), violets, and a few other tall plants i couldn't identity. once that was done, it was time for the tools. with a spade i uprooted my entire plot. there was a patch of expanding golden raspberries i thought about keeping but they were taking up too much space so i dug those out, deciding to donate them to my parents instead.

the next stage involved sifting through the garden with the hoe, pulling out any stray plant matter. most of it was ground ivy, which seemed to have taken over the place since my last visit. although my plot isn't particularly enormous, i did work up a tremendous sweat while toiling in the garden with this memorial day heat, my t-shirt soaked in perspiration, my shoes filled with soil, and my face covered in dirt.

once that was done, the soil was ready for planting. i decided to do an expanding radial pattern this year, starting from the corner of my garden where the perennial chinese lantern plant i grew last year survived through the winter and was now thriving (it was a sickly little plant last year). my indoor-grown transplant seedlings aren't in the best of shape. there was a period where i neglected them, and i think the soil mixture i used had poor drainage because pretty much every transplants suffered from some form of root rot. most affected were the tomatillo, and i may have to start another batch indoors as replacements. faring the best were the tomatoes, and other than the lack of proper chlorophyll in the leaves, they seemed fine. but i'm hoping that a heavy dose of sun and fresh air would bring all these sick seedlings back to health again. i also replanted some scallion bulbs that had survived the winter as well. after i watered the garden, i returned home for a well-deserved shower.

in the late afternoon i went with my father to the super market before going to home depot. i wanted to return this wood stripper solution i bought yesterday, but the return line was a dozen customers deep, so i abandoned that idea. instead we bought some more vegetable plants, with me getting a small rosemary to replace the one that died during the winter. i returned to belmont to help plant those raspberry plants and to have dinner there.

when i first came into the house to pet hailey, i think in the excitement she accidently wet herself a little bit on the living room floor. if you ignore the long legs and the distinctive labrador head, hailey has the body of a piglet because the shiny black hairs on her torso are very course. at times she seems easily distracted, running up to investigate whatever catches her attention, but at other times she can just as easily tune out the world, ignoring people calling her. maybe she doesn't know her name yet. after letting her out to use the bathroom, she's allowed to roam the house under supervision. she likes to jump up and lick your face but usually falls down backwards on her back in the process. she's already discovered that there might be things to eat in the trash can and i saw her standing up trying to claw at the lid. she also ate a rock while she was out in the backyard.

back at home, i watched game 4 of the pistons celtics game. detroit came out with more intensity, but celtics weathered the storm, trailing only by a few points going into halftime, when they could've easily been trailing by a lot more. the celtics were in a good position to maybe steal the game in the second half, but the pistons pressed on and boston just couldn't keep up in the end. pistons win, series tied 2-2 going back to boston.