In five days from now, that is Saturday, we will be only hours from counting down the final hour of 2016. Kind of a weird afternoon into evening with mercury rising from 13 degrees this morning to 40 degrees now. We had a brief period of freezing rain and the driveway got icy. My truck was also covered by ice. By six pm when I went to the store and laundromat the roads were only wet. Ice was all melted off the truck. Apparently some places were really icy and maybe around here – the salt trucks were out – but no ice even on the back roads when I was out. 

Sorry for the lack of updates and entertaining content today. I didn’t have anything ready to go live and I got busy with unpacking and cleaning. Spent several hours organizing and scrubbing down the bathroom. Cleaned the kitchen. There’s more to do but I wanted to get a good jump on the winter cleanup. Bathroom doesn’t get as much cleaning as it should so it’s a lot of work. I got all the camping gear put away which wasn’t too bad as I didn’t bring a campstove, instead just reheating dinner on a grill over the fire in an disposable aluminum pie pan. Glad I didn’t get it too hot on the grill when I heated it up because I tossed it in the fire when I was done to burn off any remaining food and it was almost entirely consumed by the fire.  I did go to the laundromat as I didn’t want to leave my clothes with the smoke smell baking in all week but also because I wanted to wash my sweater vest that I spilled food on during mom and dad’s Christmas breakfast. 

Looked and almost bought the Star Shower Laser Christmas lights but decided against it because the package didn’t clearly list the wattage and because they were green or red and green and I didn’t think those would be good colors mid summer. I was thinking they would be pretty though on a summer night illuminating tree branches at night, assuming they were as low wattage as they say. Half off so only $20 but I passed on them. Not sure if they would have been really visible with the flag lit at camp and all the light that typically casts on the tree branches. Maybe next year they’ll be cheaper and in more colors. If they are truly low wattage as the Internet suggested, they might be fun. 

Tonight will rain and possibly a thunderstorm. We haven’t had any thunder yet here in Delmar. Low of 40 degrees with continued warming throughout the night. 17 degrees above normal. Breezy, with a south wind 16 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 33 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. In 2015, it got down to 35 degrees with periods of rain. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1914.
Waning Crescent Moon tonight with 12% illuminated. The moon will rise around 4:22 am. The New Moon is on Wednesday night with rain then mostly cloudy skies. Not good weather for looking at the stars. 

Tomorrow will have a chance of rain before 7am, then a chance of showers between 7am and 3pm. Partly sunny, starting out the morning around 45 with a temperature falling to around 33 by 5pm. Breezy, with a west wind 16 to 22 mph, with gusts as high as 33 mph. I do need to get milk in the morning for coffee.   Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had rain and a high of 51 degrees. The record high of 60 was set in 1895. 15 inches of snow fell back in 1894. The sun will rise at 7:25 am with the first light at 6:53 am, which is 17 seconds later then yesterday.

Looking ahead, I have a bunch of new content for the blog. And lots of holidays as summer gets closer. Martin Luther King Day is in 3 weeks, Presidents Day is in 8 weeks, Patriots Day is in 16 weeks, May Day is in 18 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend is in 5 months and Memorial Day is in 22 weeks.