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12:30p was when i began the 2nd phase of sourdough 2.0. it'd been 22 hours since i left the dough alone, but i could already tell that this would be not a good bread because the dough had barely risen, just sort of flattened out in the pyrex bowl. was the dough still too wet? that's the only thing i can think of, but by this point it was too late. nothing left to do but to bake the dough and see.

learning from yesterday's mistake, i made sure to use a lot of flour to keep the dough from sticking, both on the board surface and on the dough itself. i managed to get a really good fold, transforming the dough to a tight ball. instead of putting the dough on cheesecloth - which the dough has a tendency to stick to - i put it on a piece of parchment paper before letting it rest in a medium pyrex bowl.

i washed my bedsheets today and put on the new ikea duvet cover. i got a plain all-white which is a little boring but has a clean look compared to some of the patterned duvet covers.

in the afternoon i walked down to the community garden to water my plants. the gardener who has the plot in front of me whose name i can never remember was there watering her plants, talking with a man. i had to carefully navigate across them because they were blocking the path. there was no peaceful gardening as i had to listen to them chat the whole time. after the man left, the woman began chatting with me. every single time i see her, she always tells me "how dry it is," as if it's not something i can see for myself, or maybe passed off as an astute observation. she also asked me if i knew anything about the future of our imminent domain seized plots, something she asked me as well last time. i don't like people who talk like that, they seem false, like they repeat things just for the sake of having to say. i rather they don't speak at all.

i collected a container of cherry tomatoes, some thai chili peppers, and a few cucamelons. also a pair of eggplants. i was hoping to get at least one zucchini, but when i checked my squash plant, i saw one of the fruits had atrophied. and now with the temperature getting colder at nights and the autumn sunlight lower on the horizon, i'm afraid conditions aren't great for getting any zucchinis this year. this was a bonus plant anyway, a wild squash that emerged on its own, the last hurrah of plot 34.

i did some touch-up work on the front porch, armed with two foam brushes, one for slate gray, one for woodstock tan. foam brushes are terrible, especially on surfaces that aren't entirely smooth (like raw wood), because they have a tendency to break apart and little pieces of foam start showing up on the paint. i did the best i could, i'm not sure steve or paul would've done the same. ideally the molding pieces would've been painted separately before being attached. i could've done a better job if i used some blue tape but i think i'm done with the front porch. i did way more work than my original scope, which was just to paint the newly replaced portions. i ended up almost repainting the entire porch, because some of the paint look faded, had ivy pad marks, or marred by foot traffic (the vertical base boards).

finally i moved the air conditioner back into the basement. it'd been sitting outside to air dry after i washed it yesterday. a little bit of water came out when i tipped it, i let it drain quickly before moving it, no point it letting it sit outside for another day.