My electric use is up nearly 33% since last October ⚡

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Shocking I know. It’s all the baking and cooking I’ve done lately, that extra kilowatt or two adds up each day. Fortunately the difference is maybe $8-10 at the most, as I was using under 100 kWh a month before I got into cooking and now it’s closer to 150 kWh.

As I don’t have a lot of electronics at home, and go to bed early not using a lot of lights, most of the energy I use is the hot water heater, the refrigerator and the stove/oven. And doing cooking uses all three of those appliances a lot more.

But it’s worth it for the fresh bread, healthy delicious meals, and the good life. Who knows, with inflation these days, I’m probably coming out ahead with less money spent at the grocery store on processed foods, though my grocery bills are way up too. I’m not complaining, eating healthy is an important part of being an adult and living the good life.

Wow that was a long intro to my Wednesday blog post!

Good morning! What day is it? A day and cloudy hump Day, of course. Mostly cloudy and 50 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind. Charging the light on my bike now, showering shortly and then off to work. Not a lot sun expected tonight, but will clear out late tonight around 8 pm. Might be good for an evening walk, though I haven’t been doing a lot of walking lately, as I’ve been riding to work, intentionally taking the long way in and home to get in more miles on the bike. 🚴‍♀️

This morning I burned up more kilowatt hours 👨‍🍳 making more homemade bread and butternut squash in the oven, with eggs and coffee up top. ☕ I had a lot of coffee this morning, and the eggs 🥚 🍳 were cooked with onions, kidney beans, cilantro, and some frozen veggies. It was a good morning but I had too many cups of coffee to walk though I was fine riding in as I stopped drinking early enough to piss off some of the excess coffee. The doctor says only one cup of coffee in the morning, which some days I ignore as I like more then one while I’m cooking and having breakfast. If I’m not walking, it’s not like I need a pee break.

Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 61 degrees at 2pm. Typical for today. Maximum dew point of 47 at 12pm. Light and variable wind. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 58 degrees. The record high of 84 was set in 2016. There was a dusting of snow in 2015.❄

I will need my bike headlights both directions on for safety. 🔦 Not because it’s super dark out but the skies are gray, and it’s so important to be seen by other motorists on the road. I left my taillights charging over night, so they should be plenty bright for the night to come. 🚲 ⚠️ The past few nights I’ve been riding out to Slingerlands at the end of the day, to get in a few more miles of exercise as I haven’t been doing my morning walk as it’s so dark, and I don’t love walking in the dark any more, preferring to retire to bed earlier. 🛌

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:41 pm with sun having an altitude of 37.8° from the due south horizon (-33° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 7.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:32 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (251°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (258°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:10 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 58 seconds with dusk around 6:37 pm, which is one minute and 34 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon in the southwest (216°) at an altitude of 11° from the horizon, 235,132 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:12 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 58 degrees. The dew point will be 47 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 10 hours and 57 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 45 seconds over today.

Tonight will have patchy fog after 3am. Otherwise, partly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 43 degrees at 6am. Three degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 11th. Light south wind. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of 20 occurred back in 1974.

Yesterday, I had a project that I worked on down at the library for a while 👨‍💻 then I went home and kneaded bread. Dinner was just a quick finishing off of the pea soup, covered with curry and dipping the remaining bread I had a home. 🍲 It was a good dinner, after I had a good bike ride home. Tonight I need to think about starting to pack and what food and supplies I’ll need for camping. I told myself today I would run to the store, but I may wait until Friday. Figure I could do the shopping and laundromat at same time, though I kind of want to get more sticky traps for mice 🐭 and maybe replace that increasingly problematic smoke detector with a modern ten-year one that detects flash over rather then just smoke from cooking.

Weekend still looks wet. Saturday, rain. High near 60. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Sunday, a chance of rain before 8am, then a chance of showers after 8am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 52. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Typical average high for the weekend is 60 degrees.

Not as wet though heading south it seems like it will be a wet day 🌧 as will be the first day camping and by mid-day Sunday in Cumberland Maryland, it might actually have some nice sun for riding the Chesapeake and Ohio Rail Trail before heading down to West Virginia to set up camp for the night. 🚲 I want to spend a fair amount of time poking around Cumberland, but I also realize that night will sneak up before you know it this time of year. 🏕 🌆

Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until Average High is 55 🍂 when the sun will be setting at 5:50 pm with dusk at 6:18 pm. On that day in 2022, we had partly sunny, warm, mist and temperatures between 69 and 54 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 55 degrees. We hit a record high of 78 back in 1950.

Morning At Glacial Lake

Sitting by Witney Lake

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Just a few seconds sitting down by Witney Lake in the West Canada Lake Wilderness in late September.

Things are coming together for my October vacation … 🎃

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While I do need to take off next week from work, it looks like as of now the calendar looks good for me getting next week off from work. Saturday into Sunday looks somewhat rainy, or at least showery, but I can survive a night in the rain, especially if a lot of the days will be spend driving if I ultimately decide to go down to West Virginia. That’s what I want to do, but it’s such a long trip, and that gives me pause with my old truck, plus all that time driving and the necessary piss breaks.

I am doing fine as long as I restrict my coffee consumption to less then a cup in the morning, and be careful how much other “wet” things I have for breakfast, no oatmeal overnight, no matter how convenient that might be. Especially for that second day, there isn’t a lot of places outside of gas stations to stop for pee breaks between Tioga, Penna. and Cumberland, Maryland. When I’m down in West Virginia or whatever I decide to spend the balance of the week, I can be free to consume as much excess coffee with cinnamon and ginger as I want. I am thinking I’ll start out the road trip with hard boiled eggs, homemade bread, a banana and maybe some five hour energy shots.

Weather looks good for most of next week, especially for the portion of the trip that I would spend down in West Virginia. Might even be good enough on Sunday to spend a few hours poking around Cumberland Maryland on the Chesapeake – Ohio Canal Trail, though I want to reserve enough time to stop in Keyser to go to Walmart to get any necessary additional supplies for the balance of the week, as the only shopping options in Davis and Thomas WV are Stop and Shop Express and Dollar General, both of which aren’t much bigger then a modern gas station. I plan to go shopping tomorrow at Walmart for more mouse traps, hopefully a better smoke detector that doesn’t constantly keep going off when cooking, windshield wipers, and a lot of food and supplies I need for the week, though I’ll probably have time to stop in Oneonta too on the way down Saturday, just because I’ll most certainly forget things, need to pee and it’s going to be a rainy day.

Of course I could still reconsider going to West Virigina. I saw the hot cider-apple doughnut sundae with local doughnuts made at Tobey’s Doughnut Shop that the Glen Dairy Bar is selling this month. Yum, yum, yum. That gives me pause. How can I work in Watkins Glen to my trip? Lol! I do at any rate want to find an orchard with hot apple cider and doughnuts on the way down, plus an ice cream parlor along the way with pumpkin ice cream, even if I don’t ultimately end up going through the Finger Lakes.

At any rate, I look forward to getting down to wherever I decide to camp for the balance of the week, and get things set up. Being able to relax, get some good meals cooking on the campstove. Enjoy some soups and stews, maybe bake some bread or biscuits either in the dutch oven over a fire or the camp oven over the stove. It should be a lot of fun. Warm up by the heater and the fire, then get up early before dawn, make coffee up, have breakfast, and watch the sun rise. Ride bike through out the day, explore scenic canyons and trails, hike through the mountain laurel.

Two weeks until November! 🦃

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Don’t be a turkey as they say. I’ll probably see a bunch of them on my trip down to West Virginia next week though maybe not it really depends if I head down to the Swedlin Valley or not. Which I’m not necessarily planning on doing this year.

That said I’m already thinking what comes next after my October trip. I’d like to get out to Madison County before the snow and rifle season, probably Stoney Pond and Charles Baker State Forest. I would either do a long weekend for Election Day taking that Monday off or tack a day on either side of the Veterans Day Weekend which the holiday is a Friday this year.