Days with record highs recorded in Albany since 2000:
January – 9
February – 8
March – 11
April – 9
May – 9
June – 4
July – 0
August – 2
September – 8
October – 4
November – 6
December – 6
Texas is Losing the Fight Against Feral Hogs – The Truth About Guns
Even though hunters and trappers are killing approximately 30 percent of the hog population in Texas annually, hog numbers are still growing by about 20 percent each year. Biologists and wildlife managers estimate that 70 percent of the hogs in the state will have to be killed annually just to maintain current population levels and even more must be taken to actually reduce their numbers.
You read that right: 7 out of every 10 hogs in the state must be killed just to keep their numbers where they are now.
So why are wild hog populations experiencing such explosive growth in this portion of the United States?
The main reason is that hogs breed almost as fast as rabbits. They become sexually mature before they are a year old and can produce as many as three litters of 6 to 8 piglets every year.
Another reason they are difficult to control is because feral pigs are very intelligent and resilient animals. They quickly respond to hunting and trapping pressure by changing their habits or just leaving the area for greener pastures when things get too hot.
Since they are known to roam over extremely long distances in search of food, this makes long-term hog control measures difficult and complicated.
Farm fields to solar facilities
There are some that would like a massive conversion of farm fields to industrial solar facilities…
I think this is a terrible idea. Farm land, while working land producing crops to feed humans and livestock 🐮🐷🐔 is still largely wild green space home to many common wildlife need as part of the mixed land cover that sustains them.🌲🌽🌾☘
Agriculture tills the soil, spreads manure, plants and harvests the ground. 🚜 But all but a handful of hours a year is mechanical farm equipment on the land. Some chemicals are used like nitrogen fertilizer or herbicides but for the most part the land is natural and green, soaking up carbon dioxide and providing habitat for a wide variety of animals. Fields are minimally driven in by tractors to minimize soil compaction, often worked with duals to spread the weight of the tractor.⚫ Proper aeration and fertility can take generations to achieve and can be quickly destroyed by heavy equipment.🚚
In contrast, industrial solar is a full industrialization of the land. 😎🏭Years of gently cared for soils risk compaction. Land that once was rural and agricultural will become industrialized and potentially toxic. Green landscape and dirt are replaced silicon panels.
I don’t have a problem with homeowners and businesses going solar by putting panels on their buildings 🏢 but I don’t like the idea of turning green fields 🌾 into the industrial solar facilities.
Today’s Almanac for Sunday December 15
Today’s Almanac
Night before dawn is 6 hours and 46 minutes,
Dawn starts at 6:46 am and runs for 31 minutes,
Sunrise is at 7:18 am which is 4 hours and 41 minutes before noon,
High noon, the transit of the sun, is at 11:50 am,
From twelve noon to the sunset at 4:22 pm is 4 hours and 22 minutes,
Dusk lasts for 28 minutes concluding at 4:54 pm,
Leaving 7 hours and 5 minutes until midnight.
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December 15, 2019 Morning
Good morning! Happy Bill of Rights Day 📜! The constitution is only as good as the people appointed to enforce it. 🐽 Otherwise it’s just scrap 📄 good for absorbing the pee and poop 💩 in a hog barn. Next Sunday is Days are Getting Longer ☀️. Mornings will still be getting darker but at least we will be accelerating the sunlight in the evening enough to make it less dark. Mostly cloudy and 41 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ Breezy, ️16 mph breeze from the west 🌬 with gusts up to 28 mph 💨💨💨. The current wind chill is 26. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 4 pm. ☃️
Today will have a slight chance of rain and snow showers, mainly between 1pm and 2pm. Partly sunny, with a temperature falling to around 31 by 5pm. ☀ Windy, with a west wind 16 to 21 mph increasing to 23 to 28 mph in the morning. Winds could gust as high as 47 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 48 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 2015. 8.2 inches of snow fell back in 1968.❄
I was originally thinking about going to the store 🏬 early today but early often becomes late on the weekends. 😴 I am thinking now maybe my best bet is to stop at the grocery store on the way to the Save the Pine Bush benefit and get gas at the same time. I think if I take Washington Avenue and North Lake I can avoid most of the Red Light Cameras 🚦 and it’s not far out of the way.
The sun will set at 4:22 pm with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 13 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 33 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 20. ☃️ Blustery, 🌬 with a stiff breeze at 26 mph the west with gusts up to 46mph. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 31 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 19 degrees at 6am. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 21st. Maximum wind chill around 12 at 12am; Breezy, with a west wind 19 to 24 mph decreasing to 5 to 10 mph after midnight. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 28 degrees. The record low of -11 occurred back in 1917.
On December 15, 1967, the Silver Bridge collapsed under the weight of rush-hour traffic, resulting in the deaths of 46 people. 🌉 Two of the victims were never found. The Silver Bridge was an eyebar-chain suspension bridge built in 1928 and named for the color of its aluminum paint. The bridge carried U.S. Route 35 over the Ohio River, connecting Point Pleasant, West Virginia, and Gallipolis, Ohio. Investigation of the wreckage pointed to the cause of the collapse being the failure of a single eyebar in a suspension chain, due to a small defect 0.1 inches (2.5 mm) deep. Analysis showed that the bridge was carrying much heavier loads than it had originally been designed for and had been poorly maintained. The collapsed bridge was replaced by the Silver Memorial Bridge, which was completed in 1969.
Also, today in 2000, was an the end of an era at the infamous Chernobyl Power Plant. 🔱Reactor No. 4 was the site of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, and the power plant is now within a large restricted area known as the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. Both the zone and the former power plant are administered by the State Agency of Ukraine on Exclusion Zone Management. ☢️ The three remaining reactors remained operational after the accident; all three were eventually shut down by 2000, and the plant remains in the process of decommissioning as of 2019. Nuclear clean-up is scheduled for completion in 2065.
As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until National Bird Day 🐧 when the sun will be setting at 4:35 pm with dusk at 5:07 pm. Birds the word! On that day in 2019, we had rain and temperatures between 40 and 29 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1950.
