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i woke up at 7:30 to ride the motorcycle to belmont in the thick morning fog. rarely up this early, i was surprised to see so many school buses on the road.

my father was waiting for me in belmont. together we sprayed the two plum trees in the backyard with horticultural oil. the weather condition wasn't ideal (still very soggy with all that fog), but if we delayed any longer we'd miss our window of opportunity. the horticultural oil comes in a spray container that works by attaching to a regular water hose. although technically safer than a lot of other chemical pesticides, the safety instructions made me worried. if skin contact, wash with soap and water for 15-20 minutes. the oil itself had no noticeable smell, so we couldn't tell if we really managed to coat the trees or not. i guess the only way to tell is to wait for the summer and see if the scale insects are back or not.

since my father had more than an hour before he had to leave for work, we had time to dump two bags of topsoil into raised bed number 2 and till the soil, getting it ready for planting. i had a bowl of beef broth before i returned home. i saw my father walking to work, cutting across the playground (not because he didn't have a car, but because he wanted the exercise).

at 2:00 i had a meeting with client N about another small project. the meeting lasted over an hour, in which time we also discussed 2 additional potential projects down the road. afterwards i went to the petco next door to look for driftwood (they didn't have any) and activated carbon (not for the aquariums but for my brita water pitcher). i also browsed the live fish department.

coming back, i stopped by the cafe. i noticed the motorcycle outside and guessed correctly that my godmother's son alex was visiting as well. he came by to drop off his portable photo storage device for my parents' trip.

this being my last full roommate-free day, i savored these final hours but also at the same time started cleaning up the house again in anticipation of their return tomorrow. i did a load of laundry. while my clothes were drying, i fell asleep on the couch, side effect of waking up too early. i woke up around 8:00 to make some rice noodle soup for dinner (using the leftover rotisserie chicken to make a broth).

tomorrow seems like an awesome day to go naturing but i'm sort of out of practice. i may just go to belmont and work in the backyard some more, clear out space for the remaining 2 raised beds. the sooner they're ready, the sooner i can began planting more seeds.