May 28, 2017 Evening

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Good evening! Mostly cloudy and 70 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph. The dew point is 57 degrees. The skies will clear Wednesday around 9 pm.

The mud and bugs made me decide to pack up and leave camp today — especially after the rain is supposed to hit Vermont tonight into tomorrow morning, and I didn’t want to deal with soaked gear. Muddy gear is one thing, especially when the mud dries, but soaking wet gear, you have to hang up to keep mold and mildew from growing on it. With the low dew point today — despite the mud and clouds — things aren’t too bad.

The campsite was just so muddy. Some of it may have been the rain, and some may have been the lack of gravel and not a perfect slope. It wasn’t that bad on Friday into Saturday, but by Saturday evening it was bad enough, I was moving my gear around and tip-toeing around to avoid being ankle-deep in mud. All my gear was getting covered with mud, and it was impossible to keep things clean.

Part of it was I was wearing my leaky, old boots because I didn’t want to wreck my new ones. For a while I wore my hunting boots and they kept my feet warm and dry, but I was running low on socks on Sunday by the time I kept stepping in the mud that was everywhere. And those black flies were so feirce today.

And it was actually pretty cold up in Vermont. Remember things are like 10-15 degrees in the mountains, and with the mostly overcast skies, the moisture from the mud. But it did warm enough today, that the black flies were out in full force. So I said, duck that. I’m going to go home, where I won’t have to fight the black flies with DEET, and I won’t be slopping through the mud the whole rest of the weekend.

I will probably go back up to the Green Mountain National Forest again, just not until the end of Black Fly Season. It’s really not that far, especially where I was camping. 63 miles on the odometer, which is about 10-20 miles less then the Adirondacks, each way. And it quite nice up in that area.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly after 1am. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 57 degrees at 5am. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 57 at 7pm. South wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2016, it got down to 68 degrees with thunderstorm and rain and mostly sunny skies. The record low of 34 occurred back in 1956.

The sun will set at 8:23 pm with dusk around 8:57 pm, which is 51 seconds later than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy conditions and 68 degrees. The dew point will be 56 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 2 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 27 seconds over yesterday.

Memorial Day will have showers, mainly before 4pm. High of 60 degrees at 3pm. 12 degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 54 at 2pm. Southeast wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. A year ago, we had thunderstorm, rain, mostly sunny skies and a high of 89 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 1931.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Father’s Day when the sun will be setting at 8:36 pm with dusk at 9:11 pm. On that day in 2016, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 86 and 55 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 79 degrees. We hit a record high of 97 back in 1957.

Two Scientists, Two Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dust

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Two Scientists, Two Different Approaches To Saving Bees From Poison Dust

"That pipe is close to the ground. When a tractor pulls this planter across a field, dust will get sucked into this opening, along with air. Inside the planting mechanism, "the air is rushing past that seed, it's laden with dirt, and it's acting like a sandblaster," Schaafsma says. That dirt grinds a little bit of the neonicotinoid coating from the seed, and then carries the pesticide dust with it as it exhausts from the planter, straight up into the air.

That's normally how the planter works. But Schaafsma has made some changes on this one, outfitting it with special dust traps, similar to high-quality vacuum cleaner filters. "We're probably filtering 99 percent of what comes out of the exhaust," he says.

Schaafsma thinks that this equipment, if installed on all seed planters, would eliminate most of the risk to bees from neonicotinoid-treated seeds."

Organic Farming is Bad for the Environment

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Organic Farming is Bad for the Environment

""The evidence is clear that organic farming on any meaningful scale is significantly less land efficient than conventional farming. That may, in fact, be part of the motivation for organic opposition to GMOs – they know they can’t compete. With increased use of GMO technology, the production difference is likely to increase. Imagine if scientists are successful in tweaking photosynthesis or making varieties that fix their own nitrogen. The organic lobby needs to stop our scientific advance in agriculture if they are to remain viable."

Should Body Camera Footage Be Controlled By The Police?

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Should Body Camera Footage Be Controlled By The Police?

"Body cameras are spreading fast through American policing, and they're generating an ocean of video. Axon, a company that provides secure cloud storage for police departments, says it's received more than 4 million hours' worth of video uploads from its clients."

"Almost without exception, those videos are controlled by the law enforcement agencies that created them. Some are now challenging that practice and proposing alternatives."