Good morning! Happy Saturday. Final day of regular time! Don’t forget to set your old fashioned clocks ahead one hour tonight before bed. Or maybe it do it now, so your early to things this afternoon and not late to church and everyything else today Four weeks to 8 PM Dusk 🌆 . Sunny and 31 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌞 There is a northwest breeze at 13 mph. 🍃.

I got my bottles and cans and waste paper dropped off to the transfer station. Usually make this trip once a year, because I don’t accumulate that much waste, but those cans, certainly are rusty after sitting out for for a year — especially the ones burnt clean up at camp. Probably woke up the neighbors rummaging through and sorting the trash, but too bad, it was 8:30 in the morning and needed to be done. I was going to just burn the paper up at camp, had I gone north this weekend, but it would have been a lot of paper, and in my experience paper doesn’t really burn well and can leave a lot of ashes and mess to clean up as the black chunks of partially burnt paper end up everywhere. So I was green and recycled it. Of course, apparently now they want you to separate the cardboard out from the junk mail, now that the free Park and Ride paper recycling dumpsters are gone, so I’m in no rush to recycle anymore paper right away. They charged me less for the recycling then I expected — it looked like the fees had gone up on the town’s website, but I think I only ended up paying $2 for the load. Maybe the higher fees start April 2021.

Started out the morning, with a nice hike at the Hollyhock Sanctuary. At first I didn’t see a lot of birds down by the Onesquthaw Creek but up in the hills where the tree cover is more, there were a bunch of chickadee, a red-headed woodpecker and Bluejay. And it sounded like some chipmunk activity in one of the hollows nearby. It was a quiet but chilly morning, and I was out there before the crowds descended. Strangely enough, I had never been to that sanctuary, despite having gone to Transfer Station many times before — it was poorly marked until last year when the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy took it over from the Audubon. I tried to find it previously, and while there is a big parking lot there, until this year, there was no signage for the preserve. Looks like a good place to ski in the winter — the trails have some elevation but at are relatively flat and straight for using with the skis. Have to remember that for next year.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 40 degrees at 2pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 6th. Northwest wind 13 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. That wind is pretty biting. I decided with the wind, not to go north to the Adirondacks. Still a lot of snow up north. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 57 degrees. The record high of 70 was set in 2012. 22 inches of snow fell back in 1993.❄

It’s just a long haul up to the Adirondacks for just one night at camp. So I am thinking I will wait until after the time changes and hopefully there is less snow and less breeze. It would be a lot of work to park, hike that 1/4 mile up to the campsite, dig out a parking spot, move the truck, haul all the gear back on the sled, hose up the heater and the lantern, dig out a space for the tent, unfold the ground cloth, pitch the tent, then get a fire going for just one night. Then come home the next day, probably early which seems like it will be cloudy and cold and windy.

So instead the plan is after Hollyhock to come home, have some lunch, then maybe in the afternoon go to Papscanee Island Nature Preserve, which I’ve never explored in the late winter. I am thinking down by the river it won’t be quite so cold. And maybe with the sun there will be more birds out.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:06 pm with sun having an altitude of 44.6° from the due south horizon (-26.2° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.1 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:23 pm with the sun in the west (261°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (267°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:00 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 6:27 pm, which is one minute and 10 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:01 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 37 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 15 mph with gusts up to 26mph. Today will have 11 hours and 49 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy , with a low of 28 degrees at 10pm. Three degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 22nd. West wind 6 to 8 mph. It wouldn’t have been so cold, but I’m not sure if I wanted to go up to the Adirondacks this weekend. In 2020, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 38 degrees. The record low of -6 occurred back in 1948.

Maybe my next best chance to get up north will be next weekend, followed by Good Friday/Easter which is that first weekend of April. With the time change and remote work, I might drive up on Friday morning before work, then work in Spectulator until 5 PM then set up camp, with it not expected to get dark until around 7:30 PM after we gain a little more time in the evening and the time changes.

Today in 1991, the Justice Department announces that Exxon has agreed to pay $1 billion for the clean-up of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska. That was a pretty big oil spill for sure. Now with the Gulf Deep Water Horizon, that seems kind of like long ago history, but oil spills are part of drilling for oil. The gas station down the way had a bit of a gasoline spill they were mopping up the other day, although gasoline with it’s light hydrocarbons are far less of an environmental problem then heavy, thick sulfuric crude oil that sticks and glues up everything including ducks and bald eagles.

🌹🌻🌼Only 1 week remains until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼 Despite the cold, there is hope for spring and the black flies. And the mud and manure, although that’s already kind of a thing everywhere in Upstate New York. Gotta get those fields ready for spring.

Looking ahead, there are 4 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, snow showers and temperatures between 48 and 37 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 56 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1922.