Good morning! Happy Standard Time. 🕒

I hope you remember the set your clock back from 18 weeks.

Cloudy and 67 degrees at the Elm Ave Town Park. ☁ There is a south breeze at 15 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 25 mph 💨💨💨. The dew point is 61 degrees. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Wednesday around noontime. ☃️

Seems werid being so warm in November🍂 Seems just werid to be sweating with the humidity in the air and temperatures in the 60s and low 70s but also cloudy with a good breeze. The air has the tanginess from manure as farmers 🚜 spread with the ground unfrozen but crops long harvested and pickup trucks are stacked full of firewood but nobody is heating with wood in this weather.

Out walking out to the Van Dyke Preserve then Five Rivers for the morning. 🐦 Out pretty early this morning, with the birds out singing and the time change. Super mild almost hot though with the humidity. Kind of cloudy though. 🌥 Tomorrow will be sunny again, but cooler with the wind expected to increase as the day goes on. 🌬

Heading out to Mom and Dad’s house for lunch. 👪 We are doing lunch now as I don’t like to drive after dark out in the country, especially with deer and my big jacked up truck with the somewhat marginal headlights, 😱 even though they are better now that they’ve been adjusted.

Been reading 📖 up on Bethlehem Proposition 2. I’m a bit confused about it all though the Albany County Farm Bureau 🐮 does make some good points in its memo of opposition like the impact of removal of the acres from the tax rolls on other farmers and simply the fact that the site isn’t great for development. It’s outside of the sewer district, although certainly many of the commercial neighbors down that way want to have that as an option. 🚙 Plus traffic concerns are a big issue as widing 9W would be a costly proposition there due to the emenent domain and demolitions of local businesses required. The current owner, Milltown Plaza Inc would do good on the proposed deal as do the farmer who leases that land, at least in theory.

To be clear, I like the idea of conserving open space 👩‍🌾 and protecting farming but it seems like it’s both a bad location to conserve open space — it’s located on a major highway — and it doesn’t seem to provide for sustainable farming, as it’s surrounded by suburban tract housing which isn’t the most compatible with agriculture which involves the use of chemicals, heavy noisy machinery and smelly manure and livestock. 🐮 I think it would be better to create an urban growth boundary, and support land protection further on the outskirts of town.