Good morning! Happy Earth Day. 🚜

I am sure with the warmer weather, lots of spring tillage and manuring of the earth is going on. Certainly they were hauling tank loads of manure slurry when I did my walk last week up to Bennett Hill. Got to get the Earth ready for the upcoming planting season.

It’s damp and cloudy and 50 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 13 mph. 🍃. The skies will clear tomorrow around 11 pm. Not the greatest morning ever but less wet then yesterday.

Out walking at 6:45 AM today. 🏃‍♀️ Less early then usual, but it’s a Saturday and I’m moving slowly. But I don’t have a lot to do on a schedule though a busy day planned around home. I thought about doing one of those Earth Day Clean Ups but I’m not filling really ambitious or civil minded these days. I’d rather focus on my own health and life rather then saving the world.

This morning going to have a treat — pancakes with blueberries. 🥞 I don’t have pancakes every day, or even that often due to the high amounts of carbohydrates, but I have some pancake mix leftover and I will mix with slow oaks and bananas to help improve the health value, then a little bit of butter and syrup and blueberries to top it off. It will be a nice breakfast.

Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 68 degrees at 3pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around May 4th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 5pm. Southeast wind 13 to 17 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 60 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 1985. 1 inches of snow fell back in 1928.❄

I have a number of projects to work on today. ⚙Still trying to pull the gear cassette off my bike. I have the spoke key and gear puller tool but so far I’ve not had a lot of luck. I did figure out that I can use it with my truck’s tire iron which gives me more leverage but I’m struggling. I wish I had gotten a little bit better quality tool for the job, though I think I’m getting closer now that I discovered it fits my tire iron which offers far more leverage to break it loose. Spoke key works great, I pulled loose a spoke but until I get the gear casette off I can’t pull any spokes. Ultimately if I can’t get the gear off, I’ll have to take it to the shop for the spoke replacement, but I really want to learn to do it myself, and if that involves buying additional parts or tools, I’m up for it. I want to be able to fully maintain the bike myself. Youtube is a great resource for learning. 📺

Then I want to paint some of the rust damage on the truck. 🚚 Trying to paint off some of the rust on the floor boards of the truck. I wanted to do that last week but I was busy walking and then Sunday visiting Mr. Wolcott and the parents. The weather looks good for painting but I a bit windy. Then probably go out to Five Rivers for the afternoon into the evening. 🐸 Probably leave a bit after 2 PM, after my the truck is done painting and I’m done with lunch.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:55 pm with sun having an altitude of 59.5° from the due south horizon (-11.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:07 pm with the sun in the west (281°). 📸

Yesterday, I walked 11.5 miles which isn’t bad for the work day. 🐰 Most of it was down in the park. It’s good to get a lot of steps in. I don’t know if I’ll do that many today, but there is  a good change I’ll at least get in 10 miles, especially if I go to Five Rivers for the afternoon into the evening.

The sunset is in the west-northwest (288°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:45 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 2 seconds with dusk around 8:14 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon in the west (278°) at an altitude of 27° from the horizon, 243,905 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:51 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 63 degrees. The dew point will be 50 degrees. Breezy, 22 mph breeze ⛅ from the southeast with gusts up to 32mph. Today will have 13 hours and 44 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 40 seconds over yesterday.

I got a card reader for my phone, so now if I take photos with my stand alone camera, I can process them with my phone 📲 including uploading them to the blog. One issue I noticed is that my phone doesn’t like the upper case JPG extension on photos, which also is probably true with the blog, but I found an app for bulk renaming photos on my phone.

Tonight will have showers, mainly after midnight. 🌧 Low of 52 degrees at 6am. 10 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 20th. Breezy, with a southeast wind 17 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 34 degrees. The record low of 26 occurred back in 1975.

I was very tired and fried after the week that was. 😫 Feeling better today but Friday was a day that alternated from super busy to super dead, and until the end of the day I didn’t know how much I would have to work. It turned out to be a quiet weekend, which is good because I have those various projects to do.

Looking ahead, there are 9 weeks until Latest Sunset 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 8:38 pm with dusk at 9:12 pm. On that day in 2022, we had partly cloudy and temperatures between 86 and 61 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 82 degrees. We hit a record high of 96 back in 1943.