Good morning! Today 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆. It’s going to be a while before the 8:30 sunset returns but slowly but surely creeping towards black fly season. In the mean time, Three weeks to Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯. I’ve always been quite partial to honey. Bee 🐝 keeping is a big hobby for a lot of people. Good for the flowers 🌸 and orchards too. 🍎And a good source of year around sugars in much of the country. Drizzle and cloudy and 36 degrees in Delmar, NY. 💧 There is a northwest breeze at 13 mph. 🍃.

Right now it’s kind of a dark and gray morning. ☁ A few rain drops here and there. Supposed to clear out later but I’m still a bit hesitant to rush out. I get tired of these gray and cold days in the woods. I decided last night to pull the plug 🔌 on the Finger Lakes trip though I think I will camp out in Madison County today and visit Glimmerglass State Park. Supposed to clear out later and be a nice mild night and it looks like it’s snow free out that way from both the radar and webcams in Hamilton. Last night I was thinking about going to the Adirondacks but I don’t really feel like camping in the snow ❄ again. Plus while they don’t have a ton of snow up north, they had a fair amount of snow a few weeks ago which can mean snow banks hardened to ice. It’s going to be warm enough that I don’t think I’ll have to pitch a tent 🎪.

This mornings weather is kind of a bummer 😐 but it promises to change. I’m kind of slow rolling 🍥 getting out of town to see what really happens because if it’s going to be gray today and tomorrow, I might as well not waste the $50 in gas. ⛽ It’s warm enough for sure but gray and windy. I do like the rural landscape, small towns and farms along US 20 🚜 but I’ve driven that road too much in the fog 🌁 and rain.

I am fully packed except for my gun and personal care supplies 🪒. I am just waiting on the sun but not for much longer. Hopefully it will come out soon and make for a nice drive. I don’t want to get out there too late lest the road is closed and I have to camp ⛺ somewhere else. It should be good though – I will get to test out my gas lantern 🏮 tonight to see if I have properly restored it after cleaning and see how the LED lantern works before I’m hot tenting later in the winter.

Today will be mostly sunny later 🌞, with a high of 44 degrees at 2pm. 12 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 26th. Northwest wind 7 to 14 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 50 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 1982. 7 inches of snow fell back in 1967.❄

The sun will set at 4:30 pm with dusk around 5:01 pm, which is 42 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly sunny skies 🌃 and temperatures around 43 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, an increase of 25 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 26 degrees at 6am. Nine degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 4th. Northwest wind 3 to 6 mph. In 2018, we had cloudy 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 -18 occurred back in 1933.

I checked the oil in the truck 🚚 and it was good. Maybe that’s because it’s on a bit of a slope from the ice on the driveway but at any rate it’s not real low. I haven’t driven that many miles since my November oil change. The accessory battery bank 🔋 is lower than I would hope but the alternator will charge that up. This morning I changed the starting battery disconnect voltage to 13.2 volts up from 13.0 volts so hopefully this will keep the accessory battery bank healthier even if it means I’m dumping slightly less excess charge into the starting battery. The relay is engaged at 14.2 volts on the solar panel, which I increased on Christmas Eve 🎄

Lyme disease seems to be bothering me again. 😟 I had a bad headache this morning and I’m a bit sore in my knee and elsewhere. 💪I’ve heard that it’s not uncommon for Lyme symptoms to stick around for a while after the antibiotics although for a while I was feeling good but kind of slipped downhill after the doxcycline ran out. I used to think it was only girly people got chronic Lyme 👧, but people I know who complain about Lyme haul feed sacks all day, shovel manure and get pushed around by cows 🐮 all day long and then own more guns than I do 🔫 and aare hardly weak. I might go back to the doctor on Monday or Tuesday 😷 but I really hate to go unless I’m truly sick and not just a headache. And maybe I’m just getting another cold.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯 when the sun will be setting at 4:50 pm with dusk at 5:21 pm. On that day in 2019, we had snow showers, mostly cloudy and temperatures between 35 and 21 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 59 back in 1973.