May 12, 2016 Morning

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Good morning. Today is going to be a nice one. Sunny with a high around 78. Ten degrees above average. Rain and much cooler tomorrow and Saturday. Sunday will be partly sunny but cold with a high around 59 and a bone chilling northwest winds. But for now, this morning is 55 degrees and sunny. Not too bad for sure. I see people out fishing on the river taking full advantage of the nice weather.

State fair opens in 15 weeks. August 25th. Election Day is 180 days away. Thanksgiving is 28 weeks away. Too far to give it much thought.

I got a new Google Map for the blog today, but not sure which one will be featured today. We will see shortly.

Dusk is at 8:40 pm tonight. It really expands the time I can be down at park in the evening, especially on nice warm evenings like tonight. I can’t wait to get camping again on a nice warm summer evening like we’ve been having recently. Maybe next weekend, when dusk is even later.

Lupine Festival this weekend maybe cloudy and rainy at times but I don’t expect a wash out. Hoping after I get done from manning the booth,  I can get out for a walk and take some pictures of the lupine.

Happy 2nd Amendment Day in Pennsylvania … They say that state with an ample deer population and the second largest rural population in America has the largest number of gun owners and hunters. Venison is awesome and shooting guns is fun.

Today in 1933, the Agricultural Adjustment Act is enacted to restrict agricultural production by paying farmers subsidies. There are many interesting supreme court cases relating to the AAA, some that greatly expanded the powers and reach of the federal government over ordinary people’s lives.

Have a great day. Get out enjoy the weather, and maybe while your at, get out and do some target shooting.

May 11, 2016 Night

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Sitting out back right now looking up at the moon and stars above. In the hour or so past dusk the temperature has dropped a bit, we are now down to 58 degrees. Still a quite pleasant evening. I hear deer crashing through the woods where the marshy, partially piped under Phillipin Kill runs. Not quite the wilderness but still some solitude out back.

I went down to the park for a while this evening after the town board meeting. Nice evening down at the park. The passed a resolution condemning the Pilgrim Pipeline and I had no problem speaking against that. I had no idea why I was invited to the meeting by my friend, but it was worthwhile. Passing a strong anti-Piligrim pipelines law with a lot of public support sends a message. A lot of municipalities have been voicing their opposition to this pipeline.

While I watched the PBS Newshour tonight, I on put together some more Google Maps. Tomorrow I’ll start featuring them. I made maps of farm wineries, median income of Pennsylvania, and one of income by block group in Clinton County. Should be real interesting to look at during the coming week. A week from Friday the local April unemployment numbers come out and they’ll be fun to map too.

Well have a great evening. Sleep well.

May 11, 2016 Evening

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74 degrees and sunny on the bus ride home, although I guess I’m stopping at the Town Hall for the town meeting as I was asked to come to some kind of rally on something or another. I’ll stop by for a while and then hopefully head home so I can get down to the park around 7 pm or so.

Today was just non-stop at work today. Phone kept ringing and emails kept coming in. There just is so much stuff going on for sure. I’ll be glad when this week is over, that is once the Lupine Festival is done and I can relax Saturday night. I don’t know why I’ve been so swamped with things but I swear when it rains, it pours.

I’m glad the weather has finally warmed up and got sunny. I hope this trend remains for the second half of the month, Showers on Saturday and 69. Partly sunny and a frigid 59 for a high on Sunday. That’s complete bull sheet for the second weekend of May.

The Other 9/10ths of New York State

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A breakdown of land uses of New York State looks roughly like this:

  • 60% forested lands
  • 24% farmed
  • 8% residential uses
  • 6% water bodies
  • 1% industrial uses
  • 1% commercial uses

Distance to State Parks

Not that you would necessarily realize that from looking at a map or even driving on a highway system. Interstates have put a state of mind in humans that the only places that really exist are those nearby the interstate and that have formal exits on the controlled-access highway. There are actually places between Albany and Syracuse, not that you would know from driving except maybe if you studied the exit signs.

Craziness at the Early Vote place

In these places, little towns and cities people live. Many of these areas are highly dependent on various industries or government, but they continue to exist. Lots of areas are farmed and lived on, but they may not appear in one’s psychological view of the world. Particularly in Western New York, it seems that the land looks a lot more closed in then it really, with road frontage dominated by residential housing, that overlooks vast quantities of land that are actively farmed or are forested.

Tirnell Mountain

There is a lot of New York that exists outside of the cities, on back roads, rarely explored except by the locals. There are too many back roads for one ever to see in a life time, but it’s important to see at least part of the landscape not on the main street.

May 11, 2016 Morning

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Good morning on this beautiful Twilight Zone Day. 56 degrees and sunny. Looking at a beautiful day with a high around 74. That’s about seven degrees above normal. We enter the twilight zone at sunset around 8:07 pm and it concludes at dusk around 8:39 pm. At twilight it will be 66 degrees under clear skies. A low tonight of 45 degrees which is one degree below normal.

Spring has arrived. Sunday will already be May 15th. 40 days until the official start of summer. Five months until September 11th. I look forward to getting up to the Adirondacks next week or maybe Memorial Day Weekend. Assuming that the weather doesn’t return to frigid conditions or rain. This year I’m not going to sit up at Moose River Plains for three days in 40 degrees pouring rain.

May 10, 2016 Evening

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As they say, when you shift out crawl gear into second, things seem to go smoother. Not quite passing gear but I think there is hope for the weekend. Sixty nine as we head into the 7 o’clock hour. A pretty nice spring evening. I can’t wait until I get home.

While I’ll definitely do my evening walk, this evening I have to work on the Save the Pine Bush display update for the Lupine Festival which in part involves downloading some old Orthophotos to the extent I can find them. I probably will work on this on the outside bench at the library.