Good morning! Happy Thursday. Getting my teeth cleaned this morning.🦷 Lucky me. Next Thursday Save the Pine Bush Turns 42 🦋. Been a long time since Dick Patrick and Mayor Erastus Corning had their public hearing on the Lone Pine Development during the 1978 blizzard when all of state government was shut down but not the city’s planning board hearing at the old Herman Bleecker library downtown. 🌲

Bright and sunny and 18 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌞 Calm wind. 🍃 Things will start to thaw out at around 1 pm. 🌡️ Without the wind and the bright sun pushing thirty degrees altitude by noon time, not too bad. Indeed the latest forecast predicts weather a few degrees above normal by late afternoon. ♨ Seems like the old heater has kept up fine in my apartment and it’s quite comfortable inside. That said, I think I’ll drive to the dentist just because if I miss the bus I can either drive home or wait inside my truck for the next bus 🚍 so I’m not stuck out in the cold ❄.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 35 degrees at 3pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 15th. Light and variable wind. I’ll take that for late January. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became light snow by afternoon. The high last year was 28 degrees. The record high of 56 was set in 2013. 11 inches of snow fell back in 1966.❄

Hopefully I’ll survive my dentist appointment. 🦷 I really should floss more and I am a bad person for that but I do brush my teeth regularly and the past few years I’ve been getting biyearly cleanings so hopefully I won’t be buck tooth too soon. I haven’t been drinking as much milk lately 🐮 – maybe a gallon a week in favor of apple juice 🍏 which is terrible for my teeth but I get tired of milk and apple juice at least is healthier than beer or soda. I do drink a lot of florinated water 💦 too. I support science and urban water florination and yes the milk I drink is pasteurized as I don’t own my own cow 🐮 and it only takes a little amount of bacteria of the wrong type in the bulk tank to make you very sick, and despite the iodine teat dip and properly stripping teats, cows do lay in the grass, mud and manure all day.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:09 pm with sun having an altitude of 29.6° from the due south horizon (-41.2° vs. 6/21). I’m thinking tomorrow will be thirty degrees noontime altitude but only if it’s sunny out will it matter much. I heard the mercury could teach fifty on Monday and The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:24 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (239°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (246°) starting at 5:03 pm and lasts for 3 minutes and 10 seconds with dusk around 5:35 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south-southwest (204°) at an altitude of 47° from the horizon, 251,535 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:10 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around the freezing point. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 53 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 16 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 17 degrees at 6am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 11th. South wind 3 to 5 mph. Works for me. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to -3 degrees. The record low of -26 occurred back in 1948.

I briefly checked the fluids in my truck and they’re all good. ⛽ I haven’t had to add oil since the November oil change at the dealership. I’ve also noticed that the lifter that was clicking has stopped. Maybe the sludge in the engine has fixed the problem. I do doing synthetic oil changes and lately been going to the dealer with the long hours and good price for regular maintenance. Maybe I will be able to get several more years out of the truck. I still will need to get new 35 inch tires probably at the end of the year and probably an alignment and that ain’t cheap but it’s been six years by the end of next year since I jacked up my truck. 🚘

Nothing to celebrate this weekend except maybe the Ground Hawg not seeing his shadow. 🐻 Saturday, a slight chance of snow showers before noon, then a slight chance of rain and snow showers between noon and 1pm, then a slight chance of rain showers after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 39. Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Sunday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 39. ☁ Typical average high for the weekend is 32 degrees.

🌹🌻🌼Only 49 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼

49 days of winter left, 49 days of winter left. Take one down, pass it around….

As previously noted, next Thursday is Save the Pine Bush Turns 42 🦋 when the sun will be setting at 5:14 pm with dusk at 5:44 pm. On that day in 2019, we had rain and temperatures between 37 and 25 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 55 back in 1991.