it's been so cloudy and rainy this past week, i'm starting to forget what it felt like to see the sun. this lingering october overcast coincides with our purchase of 2 new solar panels, still unable to test them fully. i brought back the 6-cell 50W solar panel - which i will now call the 20W panel - and connected it to one our smaller batteries. i also got a chance to test our rgb strip light with one of the rgb controllers that arrived yesterday. these rgb lights are not addressable so they all glow with the same color. my next project is to get my hands on some WS2812B/WS2813 lights.

a lot of the smaller lotus leaves have turned brown, but the one healthy lotus with the big floating and aerial leaves is still going strong, but even that one has started to yellow bit. my repotted columbines are getting bigger, they were stunted when grown in the plastic cups. i should transfer them to the ground before it gets too cold so they can have time to set some decent roots for the winter. it goes without saying that the rain barrels are at maximum capacity, given the amount of rain we had. some rain water i found in a bucket showed that about 1.5" of rain fell over the past few days.

i checked out our hydrangea, looking for flower buds on the terminal ends of stems. they all just look like more leaf buds. i'm not going to worry too much about it, i'll find out come next season whether we get any new flowers. in the meantime i just have to remember now to prune any of the stems.

i told my mother about the new breaking bad movie on netflix. she started watching the first few minutes of it but couldn't remember a lot of details. that made me suspicious so i started quizzing her on key moments. the death of hank. the death of gus. jessie's imprisonment. she failed to recall every single detail, which made me realize she's missed the final few seasons of the show. i stopped the movie and made her rewatch breaking bad from the middle of season 3, beginning with half measure.

we hung the led grow lights from the ratchet hangers that came with the lights, for easier up-and-down adjustments. we had to shorten the 4 wire suspension cables. i learned of a technique where you string 2 wires length-wise and clip them together with a carabiner clip. the first one was easy because we reused the lanyard clips. the second one we used the lobster claw clips i got last week, looping them together with wires. it looked fine but when we hung it up, one of the lobster claw clips snapped apart. these are made of metal but of an inferior metal, meant for earrings and necklaces, not for suspending grow leds. instead my father removed a few links from a fluorescent shop light hanging chain and used them as hooks for the wires. i got a chance to see the wall mounted shelves, now stocked with garden-related supplies. finally i saw the 4x2 ft pegboard my father got from the cafe basement. it's a good sign, we just need a way to hang it up and to buy some pegboard hooks.