Good morning! Happy Sunday. Next Sunday is National Bird Day 🐧. Partly cloudy and 33 degrees at the Glimmerglass State Park. ⛅ Calm wind. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 6 pm. ☃️ I’ll be home by then.

It was kind of a cold start to the morning – 25 degrees according to Big Red’s DIC. 📟 I started Big Red up for a few minutes this morning after I saw the voltage ⚡ drop on the starting battery 🔋 after opening the door due to the cold. It was a nice night and I was plenty warm under the covers but a bit cold after I got up until I turned on the heater and sat by it for a while. I could have set up the tent 🎪 but I knew if I had the tent I would have probably stayed in late warning myself next to the heater.

I made eggs and hash 🍳 for breakfast. It was a good breakfast along with a nice big cup of coffee ☕. Or three. Started a small fire to burn the camp trash and toilet paper, as the ground was too cold to easily bury it in a deep hole and the Porta Potties they have in the summer 🚻 have long been removed. Any poop 💩 that doesn’t burn hot buried in the ash and what wasn’t sanitized by this fire will be gone the next fire 🔥. Sat and watched the sun rise over the horizon ☀ about nine o’clock. Nice morning, not too cold after sunrise. Broke camp around 10.

Today will rain, mainly after 4pm. 🌧 High of 37 degrees at 1pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 13th. Light southeast wind. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 50 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1984. 6 inches of snow fell back in 1915.❄

The sun will set at 4:33 pm with dusk around 5:05 pm, which is 44 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 35 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 3 minutes of daytime, an increase of 30 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will rain and freezing rain, possibly mixed with sleet before 11pm, then freezing rain between 11pm and 2am, then rain, possibly mixed with freezing rain after 2am. Low of 31 degrees at 8pm. 15 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 20th. East wind 6 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New ice accumulation of around a 0. 2 of an inch possible. Little or no sleet accumulation expected. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 23 degrees. The record low of -21 occurred back in 1933.

Forecast somewhat improved from Friday in Hector so I kind of wish I packed more clothes 👚 and food 🍲 so I could go out there but heading back to Glimmerglass is the wrong direction for the Finger Lakes. It still would have been a pretty cold and wet night camping up on Hector Backbone. Tuesday now promises to be better but who knows. It was a nice night 🌃 out in Madison County and it’s been a long time since I’ve been to either the Rogers Environmental Education Center or even the Moscow Hill Camping Area. It’s pretty nice there off season and it’s also right on the plowed, asphalt county road. Plus the sites are really reinforced so they’re not really muddy. This time Iucked out again and I didn’t have to burn any of the bagged wood I originally bought in November for that camping trip to the Adirondacks. I also much preferred the rural scenery to the Adirondacks – I go north too much.

I was really surprised how quiet it was up at camp. Very little traffic on Moscow Road at night, seems like most people turn the other way from Quaker Hill to head over to Hamilton. I heard the coyotes🐺 and what sounded like a weasal last night for a while 🐆 and occasionally moo of a cow from the beef farm 🐂 down the road and some tractor noises 🚜 this morning.

I am starting to think that the DEC plows the Moscow Camping Area loop ⛺ in the winter ❄ which would be cool if that’s true. I noticed that there appears to be some snow piles along the loop road but it could have just been a hunter who had a truck do it when they camped during big game season. But I’m thinking that they might do it for the snowmobile parking 🅿 but I’d be quite happy if I could come up here mid winter and have a place to camp and go cross country skiing 🎿. I don’t mind dragging my gear back a little ways on a sled or digging out a parking spot but I gotta have a place to park. Madison County can be kind of icy in the winter though and it looks like the steep and twisty county roads are mostly cleared with sand so that’s a consideration.

After cleaning my propane camp lantern 🏮 it now is super bright 🔆 again for the first time in years. I had forgotten what full output looked like. No soot on the globe either. It was just so plugged up with carbon probably because I usually run it for long periods on its lowest settings. I mostly run it as a backup in case the electric lights shut off due to an under voltage condition. I did crack the glass in it the last time I packed but it worked fine with the crack. I bought a second globe 🌐 last year but I’ve not yet had to use it.

The rechargeable LED lantern 🏮 I got for Christmas worked pretty good too. I don’t think it will replace the gas lantern for reliable all evening light in the winter but it is nice to have have something that is brighter than a flashlight, can be switched on and off, dimmed or brightened 🔆 and is lightweight, not corded and not hot like the lantern. Electric lights are fine but they have a cord. 🔌

They use a ton of sand 👡 on the roads in Madison County, especially the hills for traction. It’s certainly a lot better for the environment and cheaper but it covers everything with mud. All the cars are a deep brown. 🚙 Between the high moisture corn 🌽 the farms are hauling out, and the manure being spread on the fields 💩, and just the gray somewhat winter foggy 🌁 skies everything is so brown. But a nice shade of brown. I do like seeing the working land though and the freedom of rural life and maybe a handful of illicit burn barrels too. 🔥 Definitely a different experience than the Adirondacks. 🗻

As previously noted, next Sunday is National Bird Day 🐧 when the sun will be setting at 4:39 pm with dusk at 5:11 pm. On that day in 2019, we had rain and temperatures between 40 and 29 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1950.