after an english muffin sandwich for lunch, i left for belmont. now that my 2nd aunt is back from her month-long california vacation (my father went to go pick her up from the airport last night), my father doesn't have to be at the cafe so much and has more free time for other projects. i found him at home preparing the snowblower for repainting. when i went inside to change into my work clothes, i found hailey in the living room. my father and i tried to remove the auger so we could get better access to the impeller assembly, but that requires disassembling the drive shaft which seemed like too much hassle, so we just worked around it. after taping up some labels, we pushed the snow blower into the backyard to begin spray painting. my father sprayed while i assisted.

after my father got a call, he left for the cafe, leaving me behind to paint the shave plate. after i finished, i hung it up from a hook dangling from the old jungle gym. both my parents came back a short time later.

we had noodles for dinner while watching pope francis arrive in new york city: a plane from washington dc, a helicopter ride from the airport to manhattan, then a fiat trip to st.patrick's cathedral for a vespers service.

a package waited for me on my doorstep when i got back to cambridge: my pound of fall green manure seeds. when i opened the door, i noticed the mail still on the foyer floor. checking around the house, i realized ana hadn't been home since this morning. the foyer light had been bothering me so i decided to fix it. it used two CFL bulbs but they're slow to come to full brightness. so i replaced it with a single LED bulb (i have 2 spares) and now the light comes on immediately, no wait.

i checked the seeds: nearly 40% is winter rye. i looked up winter rye and turns out it's not the best for raised beds because they leave a lot of residue in the soil after tilling. but this could also be a good thing, since it means more organic matter. since i'm using RB1 for growing radishes and baby bokchoi, i can't sow any green manure in that plot. i may need to clear out RB2 or RB4 if i want to sow some green manure. i can also sow my entire community garden plot with green manure. i may just end up doing that, go back to the garden tomorrow and pull up as much as i can.