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i motorcycled to belmont this morning to grab my spare infrared illuminator since the plug and extension cord arrived yesterday. i wanted to get there before it started raining, the forecast said as early as noontime. it'd also give me a chance to check the perimeter for rabbit/skunk/woodchuck intrusions as well as the status of the lotus aerial leaf. i'm happy to report that no critters had gain entry into the backyard (at least not by digging underneath the fence). the aerial lotus leaf still haven't opened up however, maybe it needs a sunnier day to trigger the leaf to unfurl.

i noticed some tiny squashes by the woodchuck defoliated stems have aborted, turning yellow. likewise, of the strand of 3 squashes growing on top of the honeysuckle vines ("honeysuckle" squashes), the one on the farthest end seems to be aborting as it's turning yellow instead of remaining green; that makes sense, as the two squashes before it are so large, they sap all the nutrients. squash vines continue to grow, especially along the southern bed, where it has free reign over the hostas and spiderworts and sensitive ferns; any squashes that develop there are just bonus squashes, since they're aerial stems that can't put down roots to take up nutrients from the ground. it takes about 100 days for buttercup squashes to mature. we already had squash seedlings (from seeds and transplants) by memorial day weekend (end of may), so hopefully we can harvest by september, although if we don't need to, we will probably leave them on the vine until the end of autumn to collect. last year we didn't harvest until the end of september, when most of the plants had already withered, leaving just the squashes behind.

bottle gourds:

insects:

flowers:

rain barrel water level gauge:

i stopped by the cafe to installed the infrared illuminator. the outlet was close enough that i didn't need the extension cable after all.

so i waited all day for this forecast of torrential rain but it never came, just a sprinkle at best, definitely not enough to fill the rain barrels. extended forecast shows relatively clear weather from now until the end of the month (though keeping in mind these 2-week forecasts are the least reliable and prone to change). my father spent all that time reconnecting the rain barrels, and it looks like we're not going to be getting any rain for at least a few weeks.

i walked down to star market to get some snacks. there was a sale on green mountain coffee so i got my mother a box of keurig hazelnut ($4.99). i got some cheetos and snacked on them when i got home but regretted the decision immediately as they were super salty.

around 5pm i called solaredge. i tried them this morning, got a message i was 14th on the queue. i waited for about 35 minutes before giving up. this time around it told me i was 4th in the queue, but the estimate wait time would still be 30 minutes. i ended up not waiting that long, about 10 minutes, before i got an agent. coincidentally his name was tony as well. tony was not too helpful, immediately asked if i'd contacted my installer yet, before even asking what the issue was. i told him in the monitoring portal, the energy this month is different from the monthly production graph number, even though they should be the same. at this point the different is nearly 200kWh, with the dashboard number greater than the graph number. he told me sometimes this happens if the meter needs replacing, but it sounded more like a server data issue. i'm no expert, but i could tell when somebody is telling me something they themselves don't understand. he put me on hold momentarily while he checked something, then came back and said he'd escalate the issue, create a case file. i told him i'd already created one, and gave him the case number.

for dinner i ate half a slab of ribs along with a taiwanese sausage. i ate it cold, but i think the ribs would taste better heated, so i'll remember to heat the other half. i watched game 2 between the red sox and indians. these are important games not because boston is trying to advance in the standings, but cleveland currently has one of the 2 wild card spots so any wins over them will put up that much closer to the playoffs. there's just 40 games left in the regular season. boston is currently 8.5 games back in the wild card race, behind the indians, rays, and athletics. in order to get in, they not only need to win out the majority of their games, but also need one or two teams above them to implode. thank god football season is about to start.