Good morning! Happy February 🌧! It’s February 2020 if you can believe it, soon Iowa caucus time for those Democrats in Iowa. I’m sure they’re tired of all those Elizabeth Warren radio commercials on the top 40 country station 📻 and embers of Joseph Biden mailers floating off their smoldering burn barrels 🚒 setting their pastures on fire. 🔥 I’m sure it will just make the grass grow greener after they spread more hog shit on them come spring. It is Iowa after all, God’s country, a free place.

I don’t care, I’ll probably vote ❎ for Bernie Sanders come the spring. I think democratic socialism has a lot of good ideas, especially limiting the power of the state in the criminal justice system and his idea of universal health care is good if I want to eventually retire early so I can focus on improving my own land. 🚜 Plus he’s from Vermont and probably toured a barnyard or two and isn’t afraid of dirt roads or the woods. 🌲Unlike the pretty boy 👦 in the White House who talks about loving coal while he poops on a toilet 🚽 made of gold.

Cloudy and 31 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁Calm wind. We got a dusting of snow but it sure is gray today. Must be because they haven’t removed the incumbent from the White House yet. Things will start to thaw out at around 8 am. 🌡️ Great more mud. 🐷

I made up pancakes and coffee ☕ for breakfast 🍳. A pretty good breakfast. Listening to Weekend Edition. Not a very nice day, very gray for sure. I’m chewing over walking out to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center 🐸 but I don’t know. I want to do some soldering projects, 🔬 finish up on the John Wolcott index 📇 and some other projects.

Today will have a slight chance of snow showers, mixing with rain after 11am, then gradually ending. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 37 degrees at 12pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 23rd. Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 18 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1989. 15 inches of snow fell back in 1898.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 30.2° from the due south horizon (-40.6° vs. 6/21). The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:27 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (240°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (247°) starting at 5:05 pm and lasts for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 5:37 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south (173°) at an altitude of 59° from the horizon, 248,379 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:12 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 35 degrees. There will be a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 58 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 20 seconds over yesterday.

The fact that the sun is above 30 degrees angle and the calendar ☀ gives me a great deal of hope. I really want to spend more nights in the wilderness but it has to be reasonably pleasant out, with the snow banks low enough that I can find a place to park. 🅿 I really miss the fires and camping in the wilderness. ⛺ It’s just not the same sleeping at home with the windows shut and just walking around the neighborhood🚶. Spring is coming! 🌸 But God willing maybe I’ll get out for a weekend in the wilderness as soon as next week, but only time will tell.

Tonight will have isolated snow showers after 3am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 26 degrees at 4am. 11 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 16th. Northwest wind 3 to 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to -2 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1961.

🌹🌻🌼Only 47 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼

One month 📅 from now will be March 🌨 when the sun will be setting at 5:45 pm with dusk at 6:13 pm.