John Boyd Thacher State Park, is situated along the Helderberg Escarpment, one of the richest fossil-bearing formations in the world. Even as it safeguards six miles of limestone cliff-face, rock-strewn slopes, woodland and open fields, the park provides a marvelous panorama of the Hudson-Mohawk Valleys and the Adirondack and Green Mountains. The park has volleyball courts, playgrounds, ball fields and numerous picnic areas with nine reservable shelters. Interpretive programs are offered year-round, including guided tours of the famous Indian Ladder Trail. There are over 25 additional miles of trails for summer hiking and mountain biking, and winter cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and snowmobiling.
Good morning! Sun is rising on this beautiful fall morning 🌄
A really nice autumn morning. Sun is rising not too hot and it’s far enough north at this point not to be right in my eyes 👀 as I walk Bypass Extension.
Mostly sunny and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☀ Calm wind. The dew point is 54 degrees.
Decided to do breakfast 🥞 before my morning walk 🚶 because it’s very dark at six o’clock. Did the loop in Delmar around the high school 🚸 rather than then taking the early bus to the Plaza as I get more steps in starting early and walking in town and there aren’t the homeless people that are sleeping, 👾 leaving needles 💉and pooping 💩 all over the Plaza. Albany lately has been in such a slope downhill. The pandemic combined with opiods really damaged the cities. Even below grade, the roof has multiple leaks 💧and your dodging puddles and dumpsters set up to catch the rain water.
Yesterday was another busy day💻 but at least I didn’t bring any work home and it stopped raining for the evening walk 🚶 thought between the rain in the morning and no lunch break I didn’t get my steps in. Spent some time reading about garbage collection in Python and R and then some advanced techniques in R. The more I learn about the programming languages the faster and better I will be at coding – which means less work in the future and better results.
Monday I bought a $1,000 in stocks and bonds 📉 and totally cringed a bit when I saw the market declined ten percent upon the release of the inflation report. But that’s short term thinking 💭 not what things will look like in 2030 when I’m starting my homestead. 🐐 I buy and hold, I’m in for the long term. I wish I had broken it up and spread it out over multiple days to get more cost averaging although in the grand scheme of things it’s just one of many stock buys on good and bad days. 🤷♂️
In some ways it’s kind of discouraging to see how over the past year my investments have remained flat 📊 despite continuing to increase my holdings 💵 thought I am well aware that stocks and bonds have no real value to convert them into cash. More shares, bought at discounted rates due to the fed rate rising, means there will be more upswing when things turn around. Cheaper prices today, are better for a better tomorrow. It’s not like I’ve actually lost real money, it’s just that things aren’t really growing much with stock market being pretty much flat to down over the year that’s been.
I am thinking about working from home 🏡 on Friday and then going camping / hiking this weekend. Probably not too far from home 🏡 although Schoharie remains a real possibility. Where to go I’m not totally sure. Already the sunset is early which makes the Adirondacks a challenge to drive up to after work. Been such a mild September this year so I think the Adirondacks colors 🍂 won’t be great until the first week of October this year.
Night before dawn is 6 hours and 4 minutes, Dawn starts at 6:04 am and runs for 26 minutes, Sunrise is at 6:31 am which is 5 hours and 28 minutes before noon, High noon, the transit of the sun, is at 12:51 pm, From twelve noon to the sunset at 7:10 pm is 7 hours and 10 minutes, Dusk lasts for 33 minutes concluding at 7:37 pm, Leaving 4 hours and 22 minutes until midnight.
What a really dark and gray morning today. The heaviest rain has stopped for now, but I’m sure that we might get more rain later on.
Cloudy, humid and damp this morning around 70 degrees. ☁️ It was raining pretty hard earlier this morning but now is just cloudy, taking the local in both due to the rain and because I’m feeling sore from the Lyme disease.
Between the rain and busy with work, 👣 it’s been tough to get the steps in the past few days. Plus today I’m just achy and sore. I did walk down to the library as I had work to do, and 👨💻 some work until dark. 🌧 Sat outside at the picnic table with the umbrella which keep the rain showers off me. All and all a pretty nice night. Saw a opossum and rabbit run across the sidewalk. Much better then the skunks I normally see. 💀 You see a lot after dark just sitting outside working.
The weekend forecast looks fairly decent, 😀 I am thinking about heading out of town — maybe not too far like Schoharie or another State Forest. Maybe just hammock camp. 🏕 The bugs aren’t likely too bad this time of year. I don’t think the colors are changing that much up north yet. Weekend looks cool, especially Saturday but really clear. 😎 One idea would be to hike the Catskill Scenic Trail again or another is to hike part of Western Catskills like another part of Bearpen Mountain. 🐻 I would want to get out real early though to avoid the crowds.
One of the GIS projects I’ve been thinking about lately, ☁️ is how to remove clouds from aerial imagery such as captured from LANDSTAT or MODIS Terra/Aqua. The idea I have is you could take an multiple day captures, like over a week or two, overlay them and then make the areas that clouds and shadows fully transparent. I know there is a filter you can do this with SAGA and GRASS but I wonder if I can do this in R/terra with some raster math. It would be neat to have cloud-free images to see the changing the seasons.
This organized series of maps shows Piseco-Powley Road from Piseco/NY 10 to Stratford/Powley Road from Northeast (top) to Southwest (bottom). After completion of these maps, I noticed a typo, “Clockmiller Corners” should read “Clockmill Corners”. Edick Road, the dashed portion is an old woods road open to hiking and mountain biking in the summer, and is maintained for snowmobiles in the winter.
Rain and mild the next few days 🌧 and then a breath of autumn 🍂
Summer can’t last forever, the days keep getting shorter and shorter. I like the cooler weather, especially with less humidity and hopefully some crisp fall days before the snow, salt and winter comes.
Today. Feels like … August 28th.
Patchy drizzle before 9am, then a slight chance of showers after 2pm. Partly sunny.
Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
and
80 degrees
,68 max dew point,
7:12 sunset.
Tonight. Muggy !
Showers likely.
Calm wind. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
and
66 degrees
,68 max dew point,
6:31 sunrise.
Tuesday. Feels like … September 8th.
Showers and possibly a thunderstorm. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. High near 77. Calm wind becoming west 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
and
77 degrees
,70 max dew point,
7:10 sunset.
Tuesday Night. Feels like … September 6th.
Showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm before 8pm. Partly cloudy.
Light west wind. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms.
and
56 degrees
,
6:33 sunrise.
Wednesday. Feels like … September 11th.
Mostly sunny.
West wind 6 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph.
Good morning! A Sticky, Muggy Monday in September. 😰
It really feels like a swamp outside today. Maybe some drizzle but it’s really all about the humidity today. Autumn, what’s right? Feels more like a damp summer day.
Cloudy with rain sprinkles, humid and 63 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ Calm wind. The dew point is 62 degrees. The skies will clear around noontime.
Dropped my phone 🤳 twice this morning on my walk down to the express bus 🚍. My hands 👐 are wet from the sweat and I kept getting tangled in the headphones. 🎧 I should get a replacement for the Bluetooth headphones but they never have anyone in electronics at Wally World. Plus the emails keep rolling in while I walk down to the bus. 📧
I did get shopping last night at Wally World, 🍔 getting a bunch of groceries, which like every week was more expensive then last. 🤑 And they have more stuff locked up. But I like still like how they have more bulk packaged stuff then the grocery store, which means less stuff that I end up having to get rid of 🔥 or take to the transfer station for recycling. I was very happy that I was able to get hot sauce in plastic container, ♻️ as I really hate glass, as I worry about breaking it, and it takes a lot of room and weight in the recycling. Plus I’m very dubious about glass recycling. Seems like a lot of trash dumps in the woods are just full of glass. 🍾
The weekend came and went. 🕊 It was there until I blinked my eyes 👀 and it was gone. I did enjoy the relaxed final weekend trip out to Thacher Park. I enjoyed the six Saturdays I spent up at Thacher Park, and while there is one more Nature Bus 🚌 the week of September 25th, I will probably be heading up to the Adirondacks. I enjoy having a Saturday to explore the park and back roads, lay in the hammock, do some reading and hike. Saturday, I hiked over 15 miles. Sunday with the clouds and rain, I did far less hiking around.
After listening to that podcast about pack goats 🐐 my fascination with them continues. I read a book about goat farming a while back, I think it was last summer, and they seem like a useful animal on the farmstead, to say nothing about hiking. Much easier to bring on a trip then a dog, as they don’t have the water needs and browse their own forages. Plus they are great for cleaning up overgrown areas in the woods. Or at least I’ve been brandwashed by Marc Warnke. 🧠 I do remember how stinky buck goats can get when they spray themselves with urine so to attract females.
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