Despite the nearly full moon, it was so dark last night at 7:30 pm while I was transferring buses by that guady old state office building downtown. It seems like more and more of the time I’m walking in the darkness or delaying my morning walk due to darkness. More time to enjoy delicious food I’m cooking up in the kitchen in the morning.

Good morning! Bumping over the Hump Day and the middle of the week and the night to day balance. Partly clear and 42 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌅 Calm wind. You’ll need your choke on this morning until it warms up this morning and maybe gloves 🧤. It’s a bit chilly this morning at least for the fingers on the morning walk. 🚶 Fog around and the air tastes of silage. 🐮 Autumn is here. 🍂 The fresh bread was good this morning. 🍞

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 70 degrees at 3pm. Typical for today. Maximum dew point of 51 at 6pm. Northeast wind 3 to 6 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning, which became cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 68 degrees. The record high of 89 was set in 2017. Amazing how quickly the average temperature drops this time of year.

Bed time was at nine o’clock. 🛏 I rose at five to cook. Early to bed, early to rise. ☺ Peas soaked overnight, with pea soup cooked this morning for lunch. Whole wheat has been baked. The dough was been kneaded for ten minutes – I find watching YouTube helps pass the time and is rising overnight for morning baking. Also will bake squash and zucchini at the same time to save energy. On the griddle this morning was oatmeal – banana pumpkin pancakes topped with frozen strawberries. Yum!

Last night was brown rice, lentils, black beans with lots of turmeric and Chipotle pepper spice with green beans. 🍲 I cooked that this morning, made crispy in the broiler last. 🍏 Then non-fat plain Greek yogurt with shredded apples with ginger, cinnamon. Yum. It was a great to eat as I was hungry after attending a planning board meeting in Colonie regarding a proposed solar farm in the Albany Pine Bush.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:47 pm with sun having an altitude of 45.8° from the due south horizon (-25° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:09 pm with the sun in the west (262°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (269°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:46 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:12 pm, which is one minute and 46 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the east-southeast (112°) at an altitude of 10° from the horizon, 226,705 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:47 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 66 degrees. The dew point will be 51 degrees. There will be a east-northeast breeze at 5 mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 56 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃 , with a low of 44 degrees at 6am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 7th. Calm wind. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 52 degrees. The record low of 24 occurred back in 1947.

Last night I went up to a scoping overview meeting in Colonie over a proposal solar facility in the Albany Pine Bush, next to a known butterfly site. While they didn’t take scoping comment at this meeting, and I had to leave early to catch the bus home around 7 PM due to the next bus not being another hour, and it wouldn’t have worked with the connecting bus back home. I honestly didn’t want to drive up there, as I don’t have parking downtown, and Lynne was out of town so I couldn’t get a ride there, but it was important for as many Save the Pine Bush members as possible to be there.

Riding to the Colonie Town Hall on a bicycle at rush hour this evening was fun, bypassing all the cars stuck in traffic on the shoulder. 🚘 The hills on Lark Street aren’t that bad, Northern Boulevard is nice with the bike lanes, the merge onto US 9 from Northern Boulevard is a bit sketchy due to the narrow shoulder just past the ramp. The rest of US 9 for the most part has a good shoulder. Honestly, I did not mind the ride. Plus it got my exercise part of the day in with my morning commute downtown yesterday.

I do wish there was more CDTA Route 182 buses in the evening, had to leave the planning board meeting a few minutes early. 🚍 Or more daylight, I would have ridden back downtown if not already dark. But I certainly wasn’t going to ride US 9 after dark, especially without a bike taillight — which I lost this past weekend mountain biking up at the Thacher.

A picture perfect autumn weekend on tap. 🍁 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Maximum dew point of 58 at 12pm. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 76. Maximum dew point of 59 at 4pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 68 degrees. Heat wave! Even warmer next week. I really should take Friday off. Maybe I will.

I am also thinking of requesting off October 16-20th to go down to West Virginia. This is the week after Columbus Day Weekend, probably somewhat beyond peak color, though I expect it to be late this year due to the mild weather. That said, it will very a lot depending on my elevation, and I’m not necessarily set on going all the way to WV — it’s such a long multi-day drive in my old truck. I could do a trip to Allegheny National Forest as an alternative, or maybe the Tug Hill Plateau and North Country. That’s a trip I will explore this afternoon most likely as a blog post.

Looking ahead but maybe not forward, next Wednesday is Last Sunset After 6:30 PM 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 6:33 pm with dusk at 7:00 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 60 and 47 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 67 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1891.