It’s literally freezing out this Thursday morning, though no wind and it’s more like a heavy dew rather than a frost this morning. Still it’s the second half of May and not October.

Mostly sunny and a freezing 32 degrees for the morning walk in Delmar, NY. ☀ Calm wind. It looks like there is a pretty good temperature inversion around. Probably warmer in higher elevations. Happens in the Albany area sometimes trapping in all the pollution. There was this one house that looked like an oil burner was malfunctioning, and it almost looked like a house fire from all the black smoke. But I think it was just a bad injector, putting in too much fuel into the furnace. But they might want to get that fixed before they have an actual house fire.

I am out walking this morning, 🚶‍♀️ and when I get home, I have rice soaking which I will cook with red lentils. Makes a bit more of pasty, softer rice mixture but I like to change things up then the green lentils. I did forget to get beans last night but I probably wouldn’t have had enough time to soak before morning. 👨‍🍳 I also have chicken 🐔 thawing in the refrigerator which I will cook up for dinner, along with the rice, spinach and those mini potatoes I got for camping a few weeks back. 🥞 I was thinking banana-oatmeal pancakes this morning, but they will have to wait for oatmeal and blackberries this morning, as I think my stove will be busy cooking the rice. But it’s fine, I haven’t had oatmeal since Monday, and true be told, it’s a pretty similar meal.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 65 degrees at 4pm. Seven degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 28th. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph in the afternoon. Not quite as cold as yesterday. I just want endless summer. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 69 degrees. The record high of 94 was set in 2017. 2.2 inches of snow fell back in 2002.❄

Yesterday I checked off a lot of things on my list. ☑ Walked 8.6 miles, got my dry cleaning and a few groceries 🥦 like more spinach, banana peppers and olives. Finally got skim milk 🥛 at Stewart’s, I’ve been putting it off as I don’t like drinking calories but I need for some recipes and it’s good for hot coffee. ☕ Soaking some brown rice 🍚 currently, going to cook that up this morning.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:53 pm with sun having an altitude of 66.9° from the due south horizon (-3.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:33 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (291°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (298°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:14 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 16 seconds with dusk around 8:46 pm, which is one minute and one second later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:28 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 58 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 46 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 58 seconds over yesterday.

I fixed some bugs in the style sheet for the blog 🖥 and uploaded that R script I developed for extracting up to date property tax data from the rolls. I’m working on some new ideas for content for the blog, I often monitor what people are searching for on the blog and use it for ideas for content. 💡

I was doing my monthly financial check up 🔎 💵 and discovered I’m taking in a lot of interest payments from my savings account which is at 4% now that the fed pushed up the rates. Combined with dividends, I’m making nearly a fifth of my monthly income from those quarterly taxable sources. That’s kind of bad as I’m going to owe a lot come July 15. Not sure what I’m going to do. I could move more into stocks and bonds but I want to keep cash on hand as I’m going to need a new truck at some point and if the market declines further I want to be able to buy stocks or bonds.

Not the greatest weather ever for the Lupine Festival but not ungodly hot. 🦋 Saturday, a chance of showers, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Maximum dew point of 57 at 8pm. Sunday, a chance of showers before 8am. Mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 51 at 6am. Typical average high for the weekend is 73 degrees.

Looking ahead l, there are 2 weeks until 9 PM Dusk 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 8:27 pm with dusk at 9:00 pm. On that day in 2022, we had rain and temperatures between 69 and 60 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 76 degrees. We hit a record high of 94 back in 1918.