Good morning! Where did May go? Still not June despite what I thought yesterday. May had 31 days. Next Sunday is Strawberry Moon 🍓. Mostly sunny and 51 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☀ There is a northwest breeze at 10 mph. 🍃.

Out hiking in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve and surrounding lands today. 🚶 Doing some bird watching 🐦 and plant identification 🌿 with some of my fellow citizen scientists, doing the kind of work that only people not affiliated with the government and governments and corporate grants can do. 💵 It’s not to say government workers are bad people but they have to put food 🍲 on the table like the rest of us. Definitely a beautiful day for sure. 😎 Lots of people in the Pine Bush 🌲👪 which is good for advocacy even if not as good for our research purposes. Not so many Karner Blue today due to the cold weather but lot of pretty blue lupine to look at and a fair number of grasslands birds although mostly common ones.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 64 degrees at 3pm. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 30th. Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 76 degrees. The record high of 92 was set in 2013.

Regardless a beautiful day. 🐸 I might go to Black Creek Marsh later for more wildlife observation although midday 🕛 might not be a very good time a dig might be better to wait for early tomorrow morning or around dusk tonight. I also didn’t pack much of a lunch so that’s a consideration too. 🍔 I probably should have packed a lunch but I stayed up too late last night 🌃 watching the protest, and was groggy 😴 and get a late start.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:54 pm with sun having an altitude of 69.4° from the due south horizon (-1.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:45 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (295°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (302°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:27 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 23 seconds with dusk around 9:00 pm, which is 48 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south (182°) at an altitude of 49° from the horizon, 226,344 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:44 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 56 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 11 mph. Going to be chilly, if I do decide to go to the Black Creek Marsh, I’ll want long sleeves. 👚 Today will have 15 hours and 5 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 19 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 42 degrees at 5am. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 30th. Northwest wind 6 to 11 mph becoming light west after midnight. Going to be a chilly night. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 49 degrees. The record low of 35 occurred back in 1945.

Been reading 📖 a book I got out about the practice of welding and metal work. 👷 Welding is very much a skill of practice and I might some day get a welder when I own my own land and have a shop. Welding is a good skill to fix broken farm machinery 🚜 or even fabricate something like a farm trash incinerator that I can use year round safely when I own land. 🔥 I’ve been doing a lot of reading 📚 about things besides politics, history and contemporary events because there is much in the natural and physical world I want to understand better. 🐮 Cows and tractors, birds and bees 🐝 are remarkably important parts of our world and I’m woefully ignorant. 🐛

As previously noted, next Sunday is Strawberry Moon 🍓 when the sun will be setting at 8:31 pm with dusk at 9:05 pm. Close to the latest sunset of the year. On that day in 2019, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 82 and 53 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 76 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1999.

Good evening! Cloudy and 60 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 53 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around noontime.

I thought today was a pleasant day. 💭 Warm but not too hot. While I stuck around home for a while this morning, the bird hike I took at Schodack Island was quite productive and full of wildlife. 🐦 🐰 🐍 Not too many crowds on the hiking trail 👪, I think people’s initial desire to get outdoors and be occupied with the little ones is kind of wearing off and most of that’s now happening on weekdays. ☁ Clouds pushed in at the end of the day.

Rained a bit while I was driving home but I stocked up on $50 worth of Aldi’s groceries. 🍏 I love 😍 how I can shop for a weeks worth of groceries and be out of the store in less than ten minutes. ⏰There are only four aisles so it’s quick in and out. One other customer when I was there. They’ve taken the arrows down from the aisles ➡ as nobody pays attention to them and with the way the store is laid out the arrows don’t work compared to a big box store. I don’t even bother to bring my shopping bags inside anymore, I just bag things in my truck. Keeps them cleaner and more Coronavirus free that way. 👾

I made chilli burgers 🍔 for lunch and they were good but I’ve sure been a bit gassy 😲 all afternoon. Chilli with beans on a burger might not be good combo for my stomach. I thought I was going to have to dig a cat hole 💩 a few times when I was out hiking.

I am happy with the haircut ✂ I gave myself. Definitely a lot shorter and nicer. I might still want to work on the back. 💈 I had the clippers so I might as well use them. Eventually I go back to the barber but I think I’ll just use the trimmers for now until things are normal enough that masks and specialty are no longer required. 💇

Tonight will have isolated showers before midnight. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 49 degrees at 6am. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 23rd. Northwest wind 10 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 55 degrees. The record low of 34 occurred back in 1961.

Tonight will have a First Quarter 🌓 Moon with 63% illuminated. At 11 PM, the moon was in the west-southwest (239°) at an altitude of 38° from the horizon, some 226,878 miles away from where you are looking up from the earth. 🚀 At the state speed limit of 55 mph, you’ll make it there by November 18^th. Buckle up for safety! 💺 The Strawberry 🍓 Moon is on Friday, June 5. The darkest hour is at 12:54 am, followed by dawn at 4:48 am, and sun starting to rise at 5:22 am in the east-northeast (59°) and last for 3 minutes and 23 seconds. Sunrise is 32 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 6:04 am with sun in the east-northeast (66°). Tonight will have 8 hours and 55 minutes of darkness, a decrease of one minute and 21 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 64 degrees at 4pm. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 30th. Northwest wind 10 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 76 degrees. The record high of 92 was set in 2013.

Getting up early tomorrow for hiking in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve 🌲 to do some birding and socially distant citizens conservation study. The more time you spend in the woods the more you. 🐸 I’m really finding myself getting lost and loosing track of time when I spend afternoons studying the woods. It will be great fun with my colleagues.

Watching next weekends forecast ☀ but it looks sunny and hot for Thursday through Sunday. My office 🏢 will probably still be remote work only so I could work from my phone or the Speculator library if I wanted to take another long weekend of social distancing up north. I could use some more beach time at the Speculator Beach 🏊 and maybe come the weekend do some hiking, maybe somewhere different up that way.

In four weeks on June 27 the sun will be setting in the west-northwest (303°) at 8:37 pm,🌄 which is 12 minutes and 5 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had hot, mostly sunny, shallow fog and temperatures between 87 and 63 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 81 and 60 degrees. The record high of 97 degrees was set back in 1941.

While I know I probably shouldn’t be, 🚨💥I’ve been watching the unrest unfold in Albany on the Twitter. I heard a few pops earlier in the evening and a police siren but I doubt it’s related. 👮 Probably just a fender bender locally 🚙 on the road. Kind of scary when you watch it all on the Twitter. I hope my absentee ballot applications ❌ isn’t destroyed or lost in the chaos in the south end. I could always vote on the machine but voting at home is a lot more convenient, especially as I suspect there will be much fewer poll workers and polling places ✉ during the pandemic.

After all those people looking down at the apparently crowded beaches on the long angle lens and then those dismissing the lock 🔒 down protests as passing the virus around, 👾 you have to wonder about these mass rallies over policing across the country. I just don’t like double standards or the bias against conservatives 🏊 .

Of course, no single event is likely to make a mass spike in cases of Coronavirus 👾as single events are burried by statistical noise♒ but together they could set back progress at slowing the spread. You can say no mass gatherings of more than 10 people ✊ but it’s kind of hard to break up a protest that is criticizing public policy and clearly is first amendment guaranteed. 📃 So much for reopening the economy so quickly should there be an uptick in cases.

I guess there isn’t much I can do about it. 💭 My priority has to be to save money, 💵 enjoy life, protect myself from the government 🏫 and work for a better tomorrow and eventually my off-grid property. 🏡 I can’t save Albany or change the world 🌍 but I can make a better life for myself. What’s happening is kind of sad but there is only so much I can do about it.

Looking ahead, Summer ️⛱️ is in 3 weeks.