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i woke up at almost 10am this morning. part of it was because i slept so late last night (3am), also because now the weather is getting colder and the late summer sun angle doesn't shine into my bedroom like it used to, my body naturally doesn't want to get out of bed. after having a pork floss pastry for lunch, i left around noontime for belmont.

i bumped into EJ watering her front yard and chatted with her about kimchi. i told her the water kimchi daikon radishes she gave me was good but i would've preferred a stronger flavor. to me it seemed more like pickling than fermenting. she said that particular style is korean summer kimchi, which is supposed to be light and refreshing. so told me it was her first time making it with daikon, usually she uses cucumbers. she made a batch but it was too salty and she was embarrassed to let anyone try it. i told her i'd introduce her to sichuan paocai one of these days. unlike korean water kimchi, in sichuan paocai they reuse the fermentation water to make subsequent batches of fermented vegetables.

couple of blocks away from my house i realized i forgot to bring the frozen mandarin orange chicken, so i had to go back to the house to get it. about to cross the fresh pond parkway, a motorcycle cop stopped traffic at the intersection for a funeral procession. must've been a popular guy because there must've been 70 cars as we sat waiting for 10 minutes. there was a car ahead of me and the driver got so mad that after the cop left, he ignored the red lights and cut across the intersection, only to travel about 10 yards before coming to a stop against behind a column of congested vehicles due to the insection blockage earlier.

the largest bottle gourd has grown so heavy that it's pulled down some vines and threatened to not only kill itself but the fate of the vines further up the branching. we ended up building a makeshift pedestal tall enough so that it could be supported. this particular bottle gourd will most likely reach maturity; hard to say the fate of the other gourds, as it's a race against time before the weather and disease take the plants for the season. the fact that we only have a few dried bottle gourds from seasons past shows that it's not that easy to get a lasting gourd. the hard part is waiting for it to dry, and often times it will rot beforehand.

we dug out the small garlics from RB4 back on july 15; the next weekend we dug out the remaining garlics from RB2, RB1, and RB0. having had 5-6 weeks to properly cure in the cool basement, it was time to clean up the garlics and prepare them for storage. my father cleaned up the picnic table so i could use it to sort the garlics. i made 3 piles: large bulbs, medium bulbs, and small bulbs. i collected the large garlics into dozen bundles, tying them up. medium and small garlics i collected into 2 dozen bundles. and the smallest garlics (those without stalks) can either be eaten or replanted not as bulbs but as garlic greens. the largest dozen bundle i saved for replanting.

i helped my father transplant his dozen yellow dragonfruit cactus seedlings into individual pots. we didn't have enough small pots so i planted the transplanted hollyhocks i've been growing in containers. i noticed they seem to be thriving despite being confined to such a small growing space, until i lifted off the ground and discovered they had sent out taproots from the bottom holes deep underground. i planted them in the area under the base of the red bud tree, between the current dahlia plants. after that we had enough pots. the cactus seedlings were easy to transplant because they don't seem to have any roots. my father misted them and then brought them inside, afraid the night time outdoor temperature might be too cold, also to prevent squirrels from digging up the delicate seedlings.