Good morning! Happy Saturday. The weekend has arrived, as has the cold and clouds. I guess the past few days have been pretty cold, although yesterday was sunny enough Five weeks to 8 PM Dusk 🌆 . Cloudy and 18 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 6. Things will start to thaw out at Monday around noontime. 🌡️

Kind of a cold and gray start out this morning, and while there may be a peak of sun here and there from time to time, it’s not a real nice day. I am thinking about my usual plan for Saturdays – walking out to Five Rivers and then maybe Meads Lane and the Van Dyke Preserve. Maybe we’ll see more sun later, but it sure looks like a lot of clouds are already pushing in from the west — see the cloud cover image below.

Today will be mostly cloudy , with a high of 27 degrees at 2pm. 13 degrees below normal. Northwest wind 9 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 48 degrees. I think that was the week last year I hiked Blodgett Hill and it was quite nice. The record high of 63 was set in 1974. 10.5 inches of snow fell back in 1887.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:08 pm with sun having an altitude of 41.9° from the due south horizon (-29° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:14 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (257°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (263°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:52 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 55 seconds with dusk around 6:19 pm, which is one minute and 13 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:53 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 25 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 14. ☃️ There will be a west-northwest breeze at 13 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 29 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 11 degrees at 6am. 11 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 6 at 5am; Northwest wind 3 to 8 mph. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 26 degrees. The record low of -6 occurred back in 1950.

Yesterday I got the groceries and sent in my signed lease renewal. I’ll have to figure where to reallocate the extra $25 a month in my budget, but when I ran the financing costs, communing costs, repairs, and extra heat for owning my own property it just didn’t make sense to buy or move. My apartment kind of sucks, but it’s in a great location with bus lines, library and parks all available on foot. I did look at some acerage trailers out in the sticks, but truth be told I’m not ready to commit to living in New York more then a few more years. The winters are so cold, the regulations so tough and numerous, the people generally unfriendly, and it’s just not where my heart is. I also kind of like traveling, and owning land would kind of tie me down more. The lease is through April 30, 2022, but at this point if I end up having to break it, not the end of the world.

There are a few things I normally get that I either forgot 😮 or couldn’t find at Hannaford yesterday so I might end up having to go to Wally World next week, but if the weather is nice I might want to wash the salt off my truck mid-week. And who knows about next weekend, as if I do plan to go north I might want to get some beer and cookies to eat while camping.

My truck was recalled this week, for the Tata airbag recall which has been rolling out for more then 5 years now, but of course they don’t have the part yet so it will be a while before I can get it fixed. I will need an oil change and tire rotation sometime this spring, so it would be nice to do both at the same time. It is definately cheaper to have the dealer rotate the tires and change the oil then the local shop, although they always try to up-sell you when you are there, and they reduced their hours which is obnoxious.

Today in 1857, Supreme Court of the United States rules in the Dred Scott v. Sandford case. The decision stated that enslaved people were not citizens of the United States and had no rights to sue in federal courts, and in fact, African Americans couldn’t be citizens. It inflamed tensions between the North and South and was one of cases leading up to the Civil War.

🌹🌻🌼Only 2 weeks remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 A week from next Saturday will be calendar spring, something we all note and celebrate. Not that it will make the weather spring like, although this week looks like both Wednesday and Thursday will be in the mid-50s, and quite nice to boot at least Wednesday. Rain though for Thursday into Friday.

Next weekend again looks pretty nice, sunny but with temperatures up north a little below the freezing point so I wouldn’t have to deal with lots of mud and melting snow. The rains on Thursday and Friday would mean the snow would be worn down, which means less digging out a parking spot, tent location and tromping through the snow.

Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until 8 PM Dusk 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 7:31 pm with dusk at 8:00 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2020, we had partly sunny skies with a few snow showers and temperatures between 48 and 37 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 56 degrees. There was a record high of 86 back in 1922.