i went to the nearby dollar store this morning to get some flexible ties. i cut a pair of 12 inch strips and used them to hang up one of my new led grow lights. they seem to work well and will allow me to adjust the light height when the seedlings grow bigger. this saved me a couple of bucks, because last night i was looking up hanging chains and the cheapest ones cost $10 for a dozen, while a 16ft coil of flexible ties was only $1.

i had some leftover apple cake for lunch, as well as some more prosciutto with cantaloupe. my miracle-gro water soluble all-purpose fertilizer (1.5 lbs) arrived today, but the miracle-gro specialty fertilizer for acid loving plants (like gardenias) was delayed and won't arrive until tuesday or wednesday.

i was expecting it to be cold because it was so windy outside so i was surprised when i went out into the backyard in the afternoon and found it pleasantly warm to the point where i didn't need a jacket. i watered the patches of grass seeds and did some weeding, mostly pulling out the grass from the southeastern perennial bed. i relocated a few foxgloves: one that was growing next to a peony, another that was next to an emerging lupine in the southern border. i was happy to see the lupine, i was afraid most of had died over the winter. finally i sprinkled some leftover espoma plant-tone around the chrysanthemums, monkshood, and some columbines.

i planted some seeds: two rows of buttercrunch lettuce underneath a row cover, sugar snap peas along the back of RB0, RB1, and RB2, and nasturtium seeds on all front corners of the raised beds.

i returned home after dinner, a brilliant sunset to my back. i wanted to stop somewhere and launch the drone so i could get some good aerial photos but the sunset only for a brief moment before the sun was too low on the horizon the clouds lost their colors. there will be more sunsets in the future, i have to be ready and find a good place to launch.

back at home i replaced all the zip ties with flexible ties. i also noticed that the shorter coiled part of the flexible ties should be on top and not at the bottom, since i'll need to occasionally adjust the length from the bottom. i set up all 3 shelves.

WWY asked if she could borrow my apple ID so she could download a VPN software for her iphone. after changing the password i gave her my info. i watched as my macbook pro gave me an alert that somebody was trying to use my account in chongqing. i hit allow. then it displayed a passcode for 2-factor authentication that i texted to WWY. she managed to install the app but it was a paid VPN. i then told her if she wanted to try a VPN, she could use my torguard account which allows 5 simultaneous usage (last i checked). she downloaded the app and entered in my info but it didn't work. torguard has a special stealth mode but it only works for macos, windows, linux, and android. ios is the only one that doesn't work because of its tight security. i asked WWY why she wanted to use a VPN. she said so she could instagram.