it'd rain overnight, enough so there were a few puddles. when i got to my parents' place, the first thing i asked was how much the rain barrels had filled up. yesterday there was barely enough to water, but today it was up to half capacity, enough to water the rest of the week at least.
a bit of bad news on the garden front: rabbits had eaten half of the snap peas in RB3, along with the 2 hyacinth beans. rabbits had also eaten some of the long beans in RB2 and possibly RB1. it made me so angry i searched the backyard with a bamboo pole, hoping to drive out any rabbits; i didn't find any.
instead of pulled pork, my mother made some wonton soup for lunch.
my father was playing with one of his his battery boxes - recharging his phone via usb - when the red 6 AWG copper wire slipped out of the crimped battery lug. it defied belief, because we bought a special tool for the crimp, and crimped each lug twice no less. not only that, there seemed to be zero compression, that the lug was basically held in place on hope alone (and mostly through the shrink tubing). i did some research and found out that the NEIKO lug crimper we used is based on metric not imperial. so when it says AWG 6, it means 16mm2, not 13.3mm2, which is the true cross sectional area for AWG 6.
before i could find a solution for our under-crimped battery lug problem, my mother was going out for a walk and i went with her. we were out for nearly an hour, to cushing square and back. we even went to an open house on a $1.3 million home on van ness road, my mother really liked the place (all the furnitures were rentals and the place had a strong fresh paint smell). we walked through the small side streets of belmont, in places i've never been to before.
i never knew there was a small belmont library branch on the corner of oakley and old middlesex road. even though it was closed, we still went inside to the foyer area, where there was shelves of free books, dvd's, and a few games. on the corner of oakley and benton is a large flowering catalpa tree. a house on payson road has a large big-leaf magnolia growing on its front yard. i also saw examples of caged raised beds to prevent rabbits from eating the vegetables, which is something we'll probably have to do eventually, whether this season or next.
back at home, i did some gardening despite the cool and grey weather (temperature in the 50-60's). i mixed up half a gallon of fungicide and sprayed the grapevine. it was a good day to do it, i didn't have to worry about sun-scalding the plants. i also sprayed neem oil on the gardenia and jasmines. the two flower buds on the gardenia are still hanging on, swelling to the size of very large olives.
my sister showed up before dinner, bringing with her some stuff she bought from the burlington h-mart (she took feifei and the new girl to go food shopping): sundae blood sausages, bibimbap rice, korean mochi, and some bland korean pancakes.
after dinner i presented the solution for the under-crimped lug nut cables: we'd return the neiko crimper and wire cutter, and buy a set of IWISS battery crimper and cutter ($35). although IWISS crimper is about $10 more expensive, it's the only crimper of its kind that's specifically designed for imperial sizes, not metric. so when it says AWG 6, it means 13.3mm2, not 16mm2. we'll probably need to recrimp all our lug cables and then re-apply heat shrink tubing.
i returned to cambridge by 7:30pm, but not before driving away 3 large rabbits from the front of the house (they'll simply come back, but it made me feel better at least). riding condition was a little chilly (i did bring my jacket though), and made me appreciate how much nicer the warmer weather is. i don't have to wait too long though, temperature tomorrow looks to be in the 70's, and the official start of summer is tuesday.
i bought a 6-way fuse block for $10. it's the cheapest i've seen for one of these blocks, it's for the battery box, not sure if it'll be useful, i can return it otherwise.