February 22, 2020 Night

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Good evening! Clear and 29 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind.There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 9 am. 🌡️

Not a half bad day, sunny but fairly cool. ☀ Pine Bush Hike 🌲 in the morning, than Yonder Farms, 🍪 came home for lunch, picked up my dry cleaning, hiked and watched the sun set at Schodack Island State Park, 🚶 gassed up and washed off Big Red and but groceries at Aldis and Wally World. 🍓Good day but a bit muddy at the Schodack Island but lots of birds 🐦 and they were chirping.

The Pine Bush Hike was fun 🚶 as one of the people there was from Missouri and worked for years with the Farm Bureau and also the Forest Service on conservation planning. 🌲 Similar to all of the stuff that the DEC does for UMP and the National Forest down there also leases out grazing rights similar to the Finger Lakes National Forest. 🐮 I’ve always been very interested in the Ozarks – as she was saying it’s a lot cheaper and less snowy down there and folks are much less high strung than us New Yorkers. Plus gun laws are much better and fewer restrictions on open burning. 🔥 They also do a lot of fire management and controlled burns on the national forest as they do in the Pine Bush.

Plus I always like Schodack Island. 🐦 Castleton on the Hudson is always pretty as is driving past the mud flats and the very gritty outskirts of Rensselaer. Maybe not the great farm country as up the hill 🚜 but still a nice drive. Plus I like Aldis in Rensselaer. Inexpensive but a nice store 🏬.

Only pet annoyance was the guy in the big truck wash bay at the car wash 🛀 while all the other bays were empty. But I just pulled out my phone and waited 📱, listening to the radio and the results of the Nevada caucus. 📻 I think Bernie Sanders will be a good candidate to run against Donald Trump this cycle and he very much may win although the Republicans in Congress will block everything he does and probably win back the house and senate in two years – the off year 2022 railing against the socialist in the White House.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 23 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 8th. Light south wind. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 20 degrees. The record low of -16 occurred back in 1972.

Tonight will have a New 🌚 Moon. The Worm 🐛 Moon is on Monday, March 9. The darkest hour is at 12:10 am, followed by dawn at 6:15 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:44 am in the east-southeast (104°) and last for 2 minutes and 59 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 31 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 Sun is rising quite a bit earlier these days as the time change approaches. The golden hour ends at 7:23 am with sun in the east-southeast (110°). Tonight will have 13 hours and 5 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 48 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 48 degrees at 2pm. 11 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 24th. South wind 3 to 5 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 69 was set in 2017. 6.9 inches of snow fell back in 1935.❄

Going to be a nice day, so I want to get a fairly early start and hike at Partridge Run. 🚶 I’ll probably start at Gifford Hollow Road but I might wander quite a ways west but I’ll stay on the roads because the woods will be a muddy mess. 👢 🐽

In four weeks on March 21 the sun will be setting in the west (271°) at 7:09 pm (Daylight Savings Time),🌄 which is one hour, 33 minutes and 44 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 48 and 38 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 46 and 27 degrees. The record high of 78 degrees was set back in 1921.

Looking ahead, Average High is 50 🌸 is in 5 weeks, Average High is 60 🌼 is in 8 weeks, Earth Day 🌎 is in 2 months, Average High is 70 🐮 is in 12 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 13 weeks, Last Day of Session 🏛 is in 17 weeks, Summer ️⛱️ is in 17 weeks and Average High is 80 🏖 is in 4 months.

🇺🇸🦅Only 89 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!🦅🇺🇸

South Hunter Mountain

How long of a shadow do I cast?

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How long of a shadow do I cast?

Your height ÷ tangent (altitude of the sun) = your shadow

For example, a 70.5 foot high building at 4:57 pm today casted a 607.76 foot shadow as the tangent of 6 is 0.105 and you divide 70.5 by 0.105.

It’s a nice afternoon today

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I thought about camping but decided against it with the deep snow along Route 8 in the Adirondacks and in Madison County. The sun through the trees is quite pretty, and the days are getting longer but it is a while until things will really dry out and be nice for nights in the wilderness. But with the time change in two weeks, the nights will be longer and maybe than I can get up to the wilderness for a night or two.

How to Get Out of New York

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President Donald Trump’s recent remarks suggesting that people leave Upstate New York got me thinking about my own plans to eventually get out of New York, buy land, and have my off-grid property in 10-20 years. Not that I totally agree with Trump’s remarks — Upstate New York’s economy struggles as much as virtually any old industrial and rural area — but because I like the idea of living in a state that is lower cost and has more freedom to enjoy my life as I so wish.

Save and Invest

Money can’t buy happiness, but it can keep you from being trapped into debt and poverty. Spent not on things but on land and experience, can make your life much better. Probably my top priority for figuring out my plan to get out of New York is to have the money to live a decent life, have options, even if it means taking a lower income job going forward. I don’t want to jump until I know I have a sound landing place.

Learn

I am pretty comfortable with being in the wilderness, building fires, working with low-voltage electricity. I understand energy doesn’t come from God, it’s not unlimited. I am willing to conserve. But I still have a lot to learn. I don’t know much about building maintenance or codes. I understand the basics of batteries and solar but are no expert. I need to become a much better hunter and fisherman. I need to read, need to travel, need to read more.

Nail Down Places to Move To

I want to move out of New York State so I can have lower taxes, cheaper living, more freedom. That’s a given. But where to? The rest of the nation, except for the short time I’ve spent in parts of Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Vermont and New Hampshire. I like Pennsylvania, but it’s still kind of cold and snowy, and the taxes are high. But Pennsylvania has good gun laws, they respect the second amendment. They allow open burning, they are pretty relaxed out in the country. There is some pretty nice country in the Pennsylvania wilds for sure, and it’s a reasonable distance. West Virigina is also beautiful but the state’s politics are a bit troubling to me, but in general it’s a wonderful state, especially out in the hills and hollers around the National Forests.

Find Work

It’s hard to relocate without a job. I have some skills from the past decade, maybe two decades by the time I leave New York, but I’m not exactly sure what kind of jobs they would directly translate into. Maybe I could go back to school or continue to learn new skills on my own. I think though doing my best at my current job and building a solid work history is key to me figuring out what I can do next when I get out of New York. Obviously, I might have to a long drive, for interviews, or even take a plane. At the same time, it’s a bit hard to judge a piece of land without going there and seeing it in person — the Internet is great — but it doesn’t give you answers overnight.

Move

When I finally get my ducks in a row, the big thing wil be the move. I will probably have a truck at that point, and I can probably buy or rent a trailer, or maybe just use something like a U-Haul. It would be quite the adventure, but fortunately I don’t have that much stuff, and i probably could move it relatively easily and inexpensively. Nothing is really tied up.

Rent a Place

As much as my goal is to eventually live off-grid, I think I’ll probably end up renting first before I buy land and a cabin. Renting gives me a place closer to where I work, and lets me have some time to find the best land and property around to buy. Try before you buy say the TV commericals. And if for some reason I don’t like the area I end up in I’m not tied down it.

Buy Land/Home

The final step is to buy land and a home. I am still thinking I like the idea of a small cabin, up in the middle of nowhere, away from the road, far away enough from neighbors so I won’t bother them and they won’t bother me on my land. I want to have as low expenses as possible, I want to have land where I can generate my own electricity, manage my own waste, minimize my consumption of natural resources. Land where I can hobby farm, hunt, and enjoy without anybody else bothering me.

It’s a Process. A Journey.

It’s important to have a vision for one’s future, and work to build for it. I am in no rush to leave New York or get on to my next step in my life. My focus is building my investments, learning, and enjoying the life I have right now. Tomorrow will come, and it will be a better life if I prepare for it appropiately.

Cattails along the pond

Definitely a nice day at Schodack Island State Park

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Definitely a nice day at Schodack Island State Park.

Earlier in the day I was at the Save the Pine Bush Hike but I decided to come here to enjoy the river and because I’ve been a lot in the Pine Bush lately and the best time to explore the woods is either in the morning or late afternoon.

I like the drive over to Rennselear and down along 9J with the river mud flats interspersed with farm fields. This area is rural but industrial, it’s kind of a working landscape. Schodack Island is also a great place to watch the birds and later on I can gas up the truck, wash the salt off it, and get groceries at Wal-Mart.