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it snowed this morning, about 2 inches, although by the time i woke up it had already transitioned into rain. i don't remember it ever snowing this late before. it's also weird that we hardly got any snow this winter (2-3 inches) but got some in the spring mid-april.

since my sister was going to belmont, i managed to get a ride from her around 11am. she made brunch for us, while i was outside cleaning the snow off of the solar panels. i wasn't expecting to do that in april, hd already put away the roof rake and ladder in the garage. i also refilled the empty bird feeder but didn't bother with the suet as it's basically a squirrel feeder at this point.

the snow gave everything in the backyard a dramatic look and i tried to take as many photos as i could before everything melted in the rain.

while i was cleaning the snow off of the roof, i could smell something delicious venting from the kitchen exhaust. turns out it was a combination of belgian waffles and bacon. there was no strawberry compote only jam, but the fresh whip cream made up for the deficiency. i couldn't taste the bacon for some reason, and asked if it was something fancy of fancy healthy bacon, like turkey bacon, but it was legit hickory smoked thick cut bacon. i think i just accidentally ate a few that were on the fatty side, and weren't very salty. later i had some leftover bacons and they tasted better.

not sure how much it snowed and rained, but it was enough to fill our 7 rain barrels. even after it stopped raining by the afternoon, snowmelt continued to trickle from the gutter downspouts. the rain allowed us to check if any of the rain barrels or the connections were leaking. for the most part everything seemed solid. even the loose caulking my father did managed to hold, most likely because we sealed the inside as well when we first installed the spigots. only one of the connectors seemed like it was leaking, the one that goes to the water level gauge. we'll need to get some replacement splitter valves and connectors.

the other project was to rearrange the grow room so that the folding table was up against one of the short walls, making room to hang another LED light for the dragon fruit cactuses my father had transplanted into 5 larger pots with accompanying pvc pipe stands. we ended up using the vander light for the cactuses, while the new luxauto hung above the seedlings. the seedlings don't seem that healthy, some curled leaves courtesy of aphids, but also tall slender stems that makes me think they're not getting enough light. i am a little bit concerning turning on a 4th LED grow light, as to how much the additional power draw. if the vander grow light is indicative of how these lights perform, then i'll say it's an additional 1kWh of power consumption per day, a small price to pay for happy indoor seedlings.

after dinner my father gave me a ride back to cambridge. i came back with 6 rolls of costco-brand toilet paper. after i took a shower, kevin did a load of laundry, washing his sheets again for the 2nd time this week. all seemed normal until 10:30pm, when kevin left his room with a conference call blaring from his laptop. he then started making dinner around 11:30pm, eating at midnight.