April 15, 2020 Night

Good evening! Partly clear and 40 degrees in Delmar, NY. I There is a west-northwest breeze at 6 mph. . Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 3 am.

I sat out back for a while. Kind of a starry night but admittedly it feels more like March then mid April. I guess I shouldn’t wish too much for balmy nights – they’ll be here before you know it. I just hope the ice cream sales at Stewart’s return by then.

It was a nice day, fairly quiet day at work from home, followed by a nice walk at Papscanne Island Nature Preserve. Went down to the laundromat mid day with my laptop. At the nature prserve there was lots of birds and wetlands to observe in the backwaters of the Hudson River . I went there about five years ago now, I didn’t explore the area fully that time. While I left my camera home I took my phone with me and took a bunch of pictures that I’ll upload the next time I’m on the internet with my laptop.

I have a shopped at Aldi’s today, which despite spending $71 I still was missing some essentials. It’s a nice small store and it was quick in and out with folks sanitizing the carts out front – no quarter required this time. I’m actually kind of wearing out my love for Aldi – I wish they had more bulk packaging and some of their prices really aren’t competitive with Walmart or even the overpriced suburban groceries around. That said, I did buy a lot of extra food for camp and next week so to avoid the stores as much as possible.

That said, getting home I forgot chillis for the burritos I plan on making up at camp and they didn’t have razors or beer or motor oil and night crawlers. I’ve been avoiding Walmart since the pandemic got underway but I may end up driving there and to the bank in Glenmont tomorrow, prior to my weekend trip. Truck is all gassed up. I was trying to avoid going to the store again but I’ll try to do it at Walmart tomorrow in a one shot deal. Every time I go out in public even with the face mask – well the bandana – I know I’m expanding my risk of getting critically sick.

I was reading the news and that 39 year old farmer and his pregnant wife with Coronavirus just outside Canastota. The farmer is hospitalized and is relatively healthy besides asthmaand probably a bit chubby too many years of drinking lots of milk straight from the bulk tank and take out in the tractor cab. Two of the farm workers are also sick says the article. Seems like Coronavirus is quite wide spread in the Central New York farming community from recent reports I’ve seen in the news. Madison County has been particularly bad on a per capita basis and they have a lot of agriculture there especially in the hills and valleys of the southern part of the county. You wouldn’t think that the air flow of barns and UV light outside would be that conducive to the virus like the dense elevators and subways of New York City . It’s kind of scary as I know a lot of folks out in Madison County and and I have more in common with many of them as the densely packed New York City.

Tonight will have a chance of rain and snow showers between 11pm and 1am, then snow showers likely. Mostly cloudy , with a low of 31 degrees at 6am. Seven degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 31st. Northwest wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 37 degrees. The record low of 22 occurred back in 1981.

Tonight will have a Last Quarter Moon with 39% illuminated. The Flower Moon is on Friday, May 1. The darkest hour is at 12:56 am, followed by dawn at 5:45 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:14 am in the east-northeast (76°) and last for 2 minutes and 59 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 37 seconds earlier than yesterday. The golden hour ends at 6:52 am with sun in the east (82°). Tonight will have 10 hours and 33 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 45 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny , with a high of 45 degrees at 3pm. 14 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 18th. Northwest wind 9 to 15 mph. That is going to be a cold one, probably one of the coldest on record for day time highs for April 16th. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 58 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 2012. 5.3 inches of snow fell back in 1983.

Probably end up working inside as it will be too cold to sit outside despite the sun. I’m looking forward to nicer days and being able to work outside rather than the dungeon windowless office at work. Tomorrow I need to load up my camping gear, go through the checklist and have everything ready to leave hopefully fairly early on Friday but it depends how busy I’m at work. That said, working from home means I’m parked right outside and it’s not a long jot to head out.

Looking forward to getting away for a few days in the wilderness, at least before that is hopefully not banned. I haven’t done anything shooting in a few weeks with the range closed and I haven’t put in much time fishing either and the last time I had a fire was New Years Eve. Might get a little snow on Friday night but I expect it will be gone by the time the sun comes up on Sunday. I’m hoping the federal government will sanction states that get too far out of line. Slowing Coronavirus is important but some things are getting way out of line. I’m going to bring my work laptop up there and briefly boot it to see if I can work from camp at a future week if I decide on a long weekend come May or June and don’t want to charge the time. I wish I could do a bigger trip but it’s kind of hard to ask for time off from work right now and I don’t want to buy gas or shop away from home where I lack hot water and soap to carefully wash my hands as soon as I get home. It was bad enough today when I discovered after pumping gas that my spray bottle with rubbing alcohol was empty. I got to careful how much rubbing alcohol I put on my hands as they’re already getting dried out from the use. Most hand sanitizers also contain glycerin to avoid cracked hands but I haven’t been able to get glycerin at the store.

Taxes are paid. I guess I could have delayed filling until July 15th but they were done weeks ago and there is another quarterly tax payment due then so why delay paying for a possible few pennies of interest. Got it done for a few months until next year. I was a bit concerned that the tax department had my old format bank account number on file and the website was down last week for fixing it but the transfer cleared without issue.

In four weeks on May 13 the sun will be setting in the west-northwest (296°) at 8:09 pm, which is 31 minutes and 18 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 54 and 42 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 69 and 46 degrees. The record high of 86 degrees was set back in 2004.

Looking ahead, Earth Day is in 1 week, Latest Sunset is in 10 weeks and Inauguration Day 2021 is in 40 weeks.

Only 37 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!