Vergennes, Vermont

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Vergennes, Vermont, is a charming and historic city nestled in the western part of the state. Known as the "Little City," it holds the distinction of being Vermont's oldest and smallest incorporated city. With a population of around 2,500 residents, Vergennes exudes a cozy, small-town atmosphere that captivates visitors and locals alike.

Situated along the scenic Otter Creek and surrounded by the stunning Green Mountains, Vergennes offers breathtaking natural beauty year-round. Its picturesque downtown area boasts well-preserved 19th-century architecture, making it a delightful destination for history enthusiasts and architecture buffs. Visitors can explore the city's rich heritage by strolling along its quaint streets, where they'll discover unique shops, local restaurants, and friendly community gatherings.

Vergennes also holds the title of being the state's first official "green city," demonstrating a commitment to sustainability and eco-friendly practices. This environmentally conscious ethos is reflected in the city's efforts to preserve its natural surroundings and promote a healthy, outdoor lifestyle.

The Real Powers of R Statistical Language for Map Making

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There are two major — and distinct ways that the R Statistical language is a powerful tool for map making — either paired with QGIS or without.

When you should use R Statistical Language with QGIS

If you are looking for a more complicated map, one of the best ways to process and wrangle map data, Shapefiles and other geographic data is within R Studio. Much of the prep work for making a map is best down in R as you can type commands quickly, pipe and mutate data, dissolve and buffer shapes easily with R and the sf package. No mouse clicks required. It’s easy to save repeated processes in an R script.

Then once the data is ready to be mapped, export it to a geopackage or shapefile, usually which I store in the /tmp directory, as I don’t need to save the data as I can quickly re-create it with the R script. From there, I can load it into QGIS, then make the map look pretty, manipulate the styling and labeling in QGIS.

When you should use R Statistical Language Alone

R with ggplot is good for simple maps, and those you want to run off frequently with updated data, and aren’t concerned with pretty labeling. Basic, clear thematic maps where labels aren’t needed or the automatic labeling of ggrepel can be tolerated due to relatively few label overlaps. In many cases, for basic maps, ggplot makes a cleaner output, lines things up better and produces better output out of the box then what you might quickly throw together in QGIS from exported data in R.

Why I don’t use R scripting in QGIS directly

While it’s possible to do R scripting in QGIS, I would rather work in RStudio with it’s preview windows, code completion and other tools rather the use QGIS. It’s just easier to do the data wrangling and manipulation of shapefiles in RStudio, and then export to a Geopackage and load the final data in QGIS.

With the oatmeal pancakes off on this mid-September morning 🥞

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The sun is rising and it’s going to be a nice day. While I prefer to walk before eating breakfast it’s too dark now. Just got to moderate the coffee.

Good morning! Happy Thursday. Partly sunny and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌅 Calm wind. The dew point is 52 degrees.

Well rested, feeling good this morning. 🛏 This week on many levels has been a struggle but the good sleep and sun with low humidity this morning helps a lot. Much more energy ⚡ this morning and less achy compared to a rainy day like yesterday. Trying to cut back on the coffee ☕ in the morning, even though I get up early and drink more water 🥛 in the evening like the doctor says. 🧑‍⚕️

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 70 degrees at 2pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 26th. Maximum dew point of 54 at 9am. Light northwest wind increasing to 5 to 10 mph in the morning. Relief from last week’s humidity. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 79 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 1931.

Should be a great day, 🚲 looking forward to the bike ride to work today. I think with the chain 🔗 well lubricated and the gears indexed ⚙ it should be a nice commute. None of that sitting in the shitty traffic yesterday on the bus 🚍 just waiting to get home. 🏡 Heck of it is by afternoon it wasn’t bad out and I probably could have almost beat the bus home on my bicycle and gotten free exercise to boot. 👢

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:52 pm with sun having an altitude of 50.9° from the due south horizon (-20° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 4.9 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:32 pm with the sun in the west (269°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (276°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:09 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 55 seconds with dusk around 7:36 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:11 pm. At sunset, look for clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 63 degrees. The dew point will be 49 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 12 hours and 36 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 51 seconds over yesterday.

Remembered last night that I had egg plant 🍆 in the fridge so with mini onions and potatoes, 🥔 and the last of the olive oil plus some garlic and seasoning made up a good dinner in the broiler. Last night I pulled salmon out of the freezer and that should be defrosted for dinner tonight. Also cooking down kidney beans this morning for dessert or maybe just a side this evening. Also good go bring up to camp this weekend. 🍚

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 49 degrees at 6am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 24th. Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph. Temperatures in the forties are a true sign of autumn coming. . In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 51 degrees. The record low of 33 occurred back in 1975.

Tonight it’s off to Walmart and get supplies 🛒 and rack up more on my credit card 💳 after retiring the debt this week. Really need more good fitting jeans 👖 now that the weather is cooling, refill my pantry 🥫 and look at food processors as my mini chopper after working a bit more has quit again. I’ve been overloading it I think, I really need something more powerful especially when I’m grinding and milling so many foods. Plus soon after I go apple 🍏 picking with dad I’m going to need to be able to process a lot of apples.

Cloudy ⛅ and blustery come the weekend especially Saturday from the hurricane 🌀 off the coast. Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 71. Northwest wind 14 to 16 mph. Maximum dew point of 51 at 12pm. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 76. Maximum dew point of 56 at 4pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 75 degrees.

It’s been quite a week ⛺ and I’m looking forward to getting out of town for a couple of days even if it’s going to be quite a windy day on Saturday and cloudy, maybe a bit cool. But I just need some quiet and time away from all this crap 💩 of the week that was. Then I guess apple 🍏 picking with my parents on Sunday.

Falls Pond Creek

Bourne Pond

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Bourne Pond in Lye Brook Wilderness of the Green Mountain National Forest.