Good morning! Final week of the Legislative Session. Or so I’m hoping. Sitting downtown at a railway station 🚉 one toke over the line. Or so goes the Brewer and Shipley song on the radio. Next Monday is Latest Sunset of the Year 🌆. About a half week after the first day of summer, due to the shifting transit of the sun. Now if the sun ever came out, we could enjoy that more. Maybe today. Partly sunny and 68 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. The dew point is 57 degrees. Going to a nice day.

Feeling fairly decent this morning, 😀 only with a minor headache that isn’t bothering me too much. DIdn’t feel all that great after going to see my parents house, but then I went home and got to bed fairly early. I was originally planning to spend the night at my parents house in the camper shell, but it was kind of rainy, wet evening, so I decided to go home. 👔 I think it was a good thing though, because it gave me time last night to get my shirts hung up, and clothes put away before this most busy of weeks at work. I am just allergic to Mondays, or so I think. I did clean up the mildew in the bathroom, especially in the tub, 🛀 so hopefully that will help.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 79 degrees at 4pm. Nice weather, with temperatures typical for today. Maximum dew point of 57 at 8am. Low humidity, nice. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 90 degrees. Much hotter. The record high of 94 was set in 1994.

I fully expect a long day at work. I packed lunch and dinner, and hopefully I will be able to find room in one of multiple mini-refigerators that have in the office to make up for the big dead one. 🍗🌯😋 I am guessing I will be taking the 9:45 or 10:30 bus home tonight, 🚌 but the nice thing about the bus, is even if I’m in a daze and tired, I don’t have to worry about the traffic lights or hitting something. Plus, I think most of the drivers know my stop, and I’ll set the alarm on the phone for 5 minutes before I expect to need to get off the bus. I’m going to take each day by day this morning, and only get my truck in evening if I expect to be released between 11:30 PM and 6 AM — which seems unlikely.

The sun will set at 8:35 pm with dusk around 9:10 pm, which is 21 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 72 degrees. The dew point will be 56 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 15 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, an increase of 15 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have isolated showers after 11pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 59 degrees at 4am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around June 22nd. Maximum dew point of 56 at 7pm. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies. It became sticky as the night progressed. It got down to 71 degrees. The record low of 39 occurred back in 1958.

Looks like a really nice weekend. Two options are on the short list for the weekend. ⛺ My preferred option would be to leave after work on Friday for Piseco Powley Road, paddle Lily Lake from Stewart Landing, see the Lilies 🌸, have a nice fire 🔥 and maybe do the Potholers on Sunday. I also want to hike back to Dexter Lake but I doubt I’ll be able to do that in a weekend. It would be nice to get back to the Adirondacks — the last time I was up in the area was in early May, and I would like to see Lily Lake before the lilies are gone, like happened last year.

But that all depends on how long the legislative session goes this week. 🏯 If I’m at work until 3 AM on Friday I’m not going to drive up to the Adirondacks unless maybe they give us Friday off. I also need time to pack 💼 and pick up some supplies although I guess I could stop on my way out there. It’s possible but unlikely that Wednesday will be the very late night. Maybe things could go into Friday daytime but I doubt it. I am not going to kill myself to get up there on a lack of sleep 😴 with Friday traffic.

The alternative is a Schoharie County trip. 🏊 Mine Kill pool opens Saturday so I could hike the trails around there, swim in the pool, ⛺ camp at Burnt Rossman, 🚶 hike the Cliffs of Middleburgh or Vromans Nose, fish the Schoharie Creek 🐠 and swim again. That could be nice alternative. I always like to do a few Schoharie County trips during the summer weekends, especially once that sweet corn is out. But I could get some strawberries 🍓 and maybe tomatoes 🍅 are Boriengers this weekend. If that’s the option I’m stuck with, which really wouldn’t be bad but I’d prefer the Adirondacks.

Wiring projects are done on the truck. 🔋I’m really interested to see how things preform with the additional battery, and how much power I’m actually getting out of the solar panel in various conditions. With the clouds yesterday, I only have a total of 82 watt hours from the panel, but to be fair it was cloudy and rainy yesterday, and the solar controlled floated the batteries after I had driven a bit with the alternator doing most of the topping off. I was thinking I am pretty much done with wiring projects, but now I’m thinking about getting an MPPT solar controller. ☀ That would help with charging the batteries better in low light conditions, and they’ve certainly come down in price, even if a decent quality one — like the Renology Rover, which I found for sale as low as $80. But not right away, as it would require some moving around of components and cutting new wires, and I’m in no rush to do it, when my existing PWM controller works just fine, and may be more then suitable for all my needs. Plus $80 bucks is money spent today is money that can’t be saved for a future, when I have land and actual need for a real MPPT solar controller for my off-grid home.

It will be interesting to see what happens with marijuana this week. 🚬 For sure. I think it’s an interesting agriculture crop 🌾, especially after reading that article this weekend in the Buffalo News that I shared below about the possibility of home growing. Turns out it’s a pretty easy crop to grow in a backyard flower pot, which is not surprising as you sometimes find it growing in the woods. I think it could get people interested in gardening and agriculture, although I do think there are legitimate concerns about the smoke and odors of people burning it especially in urban areas. It really stinks and the odor lingers around — I can tell when people are smoking pot in the parking lot 100 feet from my place — or when somebody gets on the bus after smoking.💨 Few things besides mucking a hog or dairy barn are as pungent in the air or on your clothes. 🐽

Hopefully with the majority of the nation’s population legalizing it we can see national action as that would make it easier for growers and avoid potential headaches for gun owners with the existing laws, although I’m not sure how they’d know if you bought legal pot or not. It might be a fun crop to grow in a pot or garden with other herbs and veggies 🌿 and cure when I own land, although I doubt I’d ever pay the high price for it commercially. 💰 Maybe if I got it free at a reception or party, but I’m not going to spend $20 bucks for a hit of it at some fancy-pansy commercial place. I would never use it heavy, but maybe a few times a year, a hit or some pot brownies would be good, especially when I own my own land.🍰

On this day in 1972, Five White House operatives are arrested for burgling the offices of the Democratic National Committee,👮 in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap their opposition. 👂This would become the basis for the Watergate scandal. Then Tom Paxton wrote a fun song about it. Had they not burglarized the Watergate, Mr. Paxton would have had to write a different song. The DNC stuck there for decades after, but lately has moved to a newer shiny office building of their own.

As previously noted, next Monday is Latest Sunset 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 8:37 pm with dusk at 9:12 pm. On that day in 2018, we had rain and temperatures between 76 and 61 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 80 degrees. We hit a record high of 96 back in 1943.