Good morning! Happy Sunday after Christmas. 🎄 Only a few more days left in 2020, a year to remember. I don’t know, I thought it was a fun year. Definitely unique. Next Sunday is Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄️. Then we we will really start to see more daylight, bemuse the mornings are so dark lately. Of course, it doesn’t help that I’m working from home, so there is lot less incentive to get up and going in a timely fashion except for the morning walk. 🚶

This morning is mostly cloudy, fairly cool around  25 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ There is a south breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. There is a inch of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Things will start to thaw out at around noontime. 🌡️ In other words, everything will turn to mud later on today. 🐗 But so is winter. Might be icy in a few spots, so I’ll bring my microspikes. They are wonderful, even though over the years I’ve had to repair the rubber which was damaged by gasoline spilled on them with modest-gauge wire, which works just fine.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 36 degrees at 3pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 16th. South wind around 8 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 48 degrees. The record high of 60 was set in 1895. 15.0 inches of snow fell back in 1894.❄

I might go for walk on rail trail this morning, 🚂 although I’m a bit undecided on that fact as it’s often overrun by yuppies these days and there is not a lot of places to piss along the trail. 🚽 I have a weak bladder in some ways and I like being able to piss wherever in the woods. 🌲

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:57 am with sun having an altitude of 24.1° from the due south horizon (-46.7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:44 pm with the sun in the southwest (231°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (238°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:29 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 24 seconds with dusk around 5:00 pm, which is 43 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the east (83°) at an altitude of 25° from the horizon, 249,702 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:37 pm. At sunset, look for partly sunny skies 🌃 and temperatures around 34 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 8 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, an increase of 26 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 26 degrees at 12am. Nine degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 4th. Maximum wind chill around 20 at 6pm; South wind 9 to 15 mph. In 2019, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 27 degrees. The record low of -14 occurred back in 1951.

Yesterday was to be about expected. 🐦 Saw fewer birds then I expected at Five Rivers, and it was cold. Did get a good look at some does whose were browsing through the glass. 🔭 Interesting to watch them browse, they didn’t give a fuck about humans being around at the nature center. A lot of people were out and about, the flooding after the snow melt yesterday kind of made a mess of the bridges over the Vlomanskill. Certainly not the first time they’ve been repairing bridges down there. Came home, read for a while 📖 and watched some videos on my phone. Having unlimited smartphone data is actually kind of fun.📲 That video I shared last night about contract pig farming is really interesting. 🐖 I know it’s often denounced in leftist circles, but there is a lot of rational behind it in farmers minds (namely you shift the market risk to someone else, you get feed for free and reliable check and free manure for the field crop part of the operation). Grain ain’t cheap and manure is valuable for building soils. Then I went for my evening walk. 🚶

Tomorrow is a session day at work, 🕴️although because I am working from home, it shouldn’t need to dress up. I confirmed my phone will work fine with the streaming video, and I will use the hotpsot mode on the phone for email and memo writing. Should work fine, and I’m not worried at all about the data use as so far my data use is nowhere near hitting the 20 GB cap for the month. 🍥 I think I figured out a solution that will work fine for the next few months, and then hopefully either it will warm up enough to work at the park or library, or better yet, things go back to normal, and I can work in the real office again. It’s a learning experience for sure.

I am debating about my plans for the New Years Eve Weekend. 🎇 New Years Eve and Day look cold and rainy but the weekend okay. I might go up north on Thursday, and stay for the weekend, bringing lots of tarps and warm clothes. The places I’m considering camping are well drained, so I’m not worried too much about the mud. 🏕 With a good fire, hot coca and my hot tent it wouldn’t be too cold, and I would enjoy the quiet reading. 📖 I don’t want to get conned out from another weekend by the weather, especially if it’s going to be relatively mild and snow-free. While my mind is not totally set upon this, but I still think it would be fun.

As previously noted, next Sunday is Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄️ when the sun will be setting at 4:34 pm with dusk at 5:06 pm. Already picked up 13 minutes of daylight in the evening at that point. On that day in 2020, we had mostly cloudy skies, mild conditions, rain showers and temperatures between 47 and 39 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1913.