John Boyd Thacher State Park

Good morning! Happy Frigid Tuesday. 🌅

Only one more really cold day or so we tell ourselves. Things should moderate tomorrow with rain coming in.

Partly sunny and 16 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ There is a northwest breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 3. Things will start to thaw out at around 2 pm. 🌡️

Kind of cold and raw for the morning walk 🚶 but it’s clear and the sun is rising. ☀ April is around the corner 🌷 so even a cold morning isn’t that cold. Red winged Black Birds don’t seem to mind the cold though. No mourning doves around though. 🕊️

Yesterday was a busy day at work 💼 but I kept things moving as more things piled up in the queue. It was a cold day yesterday both for the evening walk and when I got home, though under the covers with the electric blanket and lights out at eight o’clock it was comfortable and I got a good night’s sleep 😴.

Riding the bus home last night, ⛪ I passed a large event packing town hall. Getting home 🏡 I was reading on the Facebook it was a hearing about some large suburbanite development off of Elsmere Avenue heading out towards the Delmar bypass and Wally World. You know the type with the chemically treated lawns, poly vinyl chloride siding and colored televisions 📺. You think I would think it was a cause I would care about but not really. With such massive industrial solar and wind being built, the suburbanite developers are small fish 🐠.

I’m just more focused on making money 💵, and I’m busy and not really interested in politics and all that the time and money it takes to going to public hearings and protests. I don’t consider New York to be my home 🏡, just a place to make some money before leaving for good. I’m well aware of the directions things are going. 🌲 Fighting development in the Pine Bush is a cause I’m into but for everything else I’m mostly just focused on the future 🔮.

I was also reading 📖 an article on NPR about the increasingly radical climate change activists 🌎 which want to site massive industrial solar and wind facilities without serious review of environmental impacts. Solar developers increasingly are ignoring impacts to endangered species, wetlands and prime farm land – and the toxic materials their panels and turbines are made out of. They feel like the climate benefits exceed all others. Maybe the one benefit is they are continuing to drive down the price of solar and supporting equipment – which will be good when I build my own homestead. 🚜

Probably the good news 📰 is that communities are increasingly speaking up against industrial renewable facilities ✊✊🏻✊🏼✊🏿 and some states are passing laws to rein in the abuses and scams of the renewable industry that threaten hundreds of square miles of forest and farm land. People are taking developers to court, fighting for their rights. ⚖ I see renewable energy as the next big fight 🌎 – they are in many ways like the highway developers of the 1960s and the nuclear power ⚛ plants of the seventies. Renewable energy will create this generations Jane Jacobs fighting the power brokers.

Good morning! The average high for today is 50 degrees but that’s just a cruel joke ❄

It seems like the mercury will struggle to reach 25 degrees with a stiff breeze. The lion 🦁 doesn’t seem to want to bite the bucket. I guess that’s what we get for the warm weather last week.

Cold and sunny 🌞 and 18 degrees in Delmar, NY. Breezy, ️16 mph breeze from the west-northwest 🌬 with gusts up to 28 mph 💨💨💨. The current wind chill is 3. Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 1 pm. 🌡️

A cold morning walk 🚶 though the wind 🍃 is giving me a bit of a break for now. That said, there were certainly colder days walking in February. The sun is still in my eyes 👀 this morning but I am running a bit later than usual. 🎶 Listening to Arlo Guthrie sing about the City of New Orleans. But all the towns and people seem to fall into a bad dream, and the steel rail hasn’t heard the news 📰.

Well the heat is back on. ♨️ I waited as long as I could but with the mercury dropping I switched it back on. It’s gas heat and the worse I’ve seen a a $110 bill for gas and electric but I don’t like paying more than I have to. Last month was only $95 as I kept thermostat down and didn’t use the space heater much. I think the heat will be off again come Wednesday once it’s back but above freezing and getting up to the fifties in the day time. Friday I might have the windows open 🔳 again. Average high is sixty in less than three 3⃣ weeks now.

Session day today, 👨🏻‍💼I’m going to try out that dress shirt that I patched the tare in the shoulder. This way I should have gone enough shirts for a five day session week. Some point I’ll get to JC Penny. Worse comes to worst, I’ll run to the laundromat mid week. I really need to research alternative places to get dress shirts, as some points the ones I have will wear out.

Went to Walmart and got $90 in groceries and supplies. 🛒 My pantry should be well stocked for the week. I did forget cooking oil and pan spray but I’ll just use butter I guess. I can’t complain that’s not bad for what is likely enough food 🍲 and supplies for the week. Maybe I worry too much about little things like that but over time things add up. Kind of mad I forgot oil, pancakes 🥞 are so much crisper and better with a little oil.

Car insurance, electricity bill and rent is due this week 💵 so even more bills but at least it’s a pay week. Having stayed home the past few weeks things aren’t so bad. I might head out to hit up a trout stream this weekend 🎣 and maybe an overnight, time and the forecast will tell. Hopefully, assuming I did my tax rebate in a week or two I’ll be getting my tax refund back, which will be good to buy gas and beer for my next trip up to the wilderness. 🌲 🏕 🏞

The markets are back up, 📈 so I guess I don’t have much to fret as investments continue to grow, though probably not the rate of inflation. But every day I get one closer to owning my own land. 🐷 I think my parents were impressed how much I know about pig farming, probably because I’ve read a few books about it. That said, pigs are great organic recyclers and reclaimers of land, especially after you’ve run a few ton of grain through them. Don’t recommend them too close, or upwind of your house though. But they can turn rock and sand into some good dirt for farming. 🚜 Looking at Zillow is fun, although there is nothing on that site that I am that interested into locally, but I want to wait a few more years before jumping in, and probably not in New York because you know gun restrictions and burn bans, taxes etc. Better to save and invest today for a better tomorrow. 💰

While I didn’t get my 10,000 steps in yesterday 👣 I did go for my evening walk. It was brisk, but lacking the cold of true winter. On my way to Walmart from my parents house I thought about doing a quick jog up Blodgett Hill but decided against it as it was a cold evening and I didn’t want to get to Walmart too late. Maybe I’ll hike Blodgett Hill after I go to the transfer station in a few weeks. ♻ It would be interesting to check up on the Pitch Pine up there. 🌲

I am thinking in a few weeks about what my next road trip will be. 🏕 With fuel prices maybe not so far away, although I’m leaning towards the Adirondacks. The fishing opportunities probably though would be better in Central NY. 🎣 But it’s been a long time since I’ve been up to the Adirondacks, so that would be fun too. I want to take off a few days from work, so I can camp at least 3 nights — maybe over the Easter Weekend or maybe the weekend before. I am not really sure at this point. It would be nice to sit in the hammock with a book, 📖 assuming that it’s not too cold out for that.

Good morning! The cold has arrived on this Sunday morning. ☁️

No snow here, but my buddy up in Summit has posted pictures of several inches of snow up in his place. ❄️ Maybe some snow here late tonight into tomorrow? Possibly, I want to try to be off the roads before the salt spreaders come out for the night.

Mostly cloudy and 37 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a southwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 6 pm. ☃️

It’s a Sunday, I have the normal things on tap. 😷 Wash and boil the muzzles, 🚿 scrub and clean around, ♻️ smash down the recycables and try to find more room for them 🗑 get clothes together and read to be taken out with me to the folks house to be washed in the afternoon. 👕 I was able to fix an old dress shirt with a rip, 👔 it’s not perfect, but under the blazer nobody can see the patched rip in the shoulder. I still need to get more dress shirts, but it’s tough with Sears closed and JC Penny open limited hours, and I’m afraid to order anything online — as you never know what you will get.

Going out to the folks house later today for Sunday dinner. 🍽 I’m thinking I might do a quick jot up Bennett Hill, though that’s not set in stone. 🚶‍♀️ It’s probably going to be super sloppy up there and I might want the farm boots. 👢 There in my truck if I need them. Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to wear them even if they are bit bulky and obnoxious for hiking, they do keep your feet dry. There’s a reason why farmer folk 👩‍🌾 wear ’em in those muddy cow pastures — and it’s not just to keep them out of the shit. 💩

It’s going to be a four or five day session week coming up. 👨‍💼 I expect I’ll probably be taking the local most of the week and will need five days worth of clean dress shirts and pants. I think I am good with that now that I patched that one shirt, but if need be I’ll run to laundromat mid-week. 👖 I thought about going to JC Penny yesterday but it was pouring rain, and I wanted to combine it with a walk in the Pine Bush plus I didn’t want to drive in the rain. 🌧

I do need to get groceries, 🏪 and are thinking about it after dinner with the folks, assuming it’s not snowing too much. ❄️ I need a lot of little things, I could probably go a few more days, but what happens if I get stuck working late most of the week? Not that I think it’s likely, they don’t have a lot of bills left on the debate list to take up this week. 🗣 I have no idea when the budget will get done, but I think it won’t be super over-due, plus in the department I work in, chances are good that I either won’t have to work late or I can work remotely.

It was a nice walk yesterday out to Five Rivers, 🐦 although I tell you that plastic plant in Fuera Bush stunk like ABS plastic. Think about the smell of that old record player or television set you tossed in the bonfire, kind of smell. 👃 It was pretty yucky. I’ve noticed the stink from time to time as far away as Five Rivers when the wind is blowing the right way. SABIC Plastic and it’s predecessor GE Plastics bought out and tore down the nearby houses, 🏚 probably because the neighbors complained about the being constantly fumigated by the plant. They still run the town compost plant right next to it, along with a large solar farm and hay and crop fields, but I don’t know about the toxicity of it all. 💀 I get that styrene and butadine can be pungent though in tiny amounts, leaking out of plant pipes and when unloaded from train cars. A few years back, a tanker car full of liquid styrene flipped over in the yard, though fortunately little leaked.

Besides the occasional stink, 👃 it wasn’t too bad a Five Rivers. 🐸 Lot of children 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 and others walking around but I still was able to find some solitude and got in 17,000 steps for the day. Usual birds, lots of Red-wing Black Birds, Robbins,  Canada Geese 🦆, Morning Doves, etc. Geese must be having babies soon, they were super aggressive around one of the ponds. Saw some deer exploring the Van Dyke Preserve earlier in the morning.

Got home around 12 AM and stayed home the rest of the day 🏠 as it poured and drizzled most of the afternoon. Every time I wanted to go for a walk or down to the library, it was raining too hard. 🚿 Plus it was a Saturday and I didn’t feel like showering or getting clean. I just wanted to be dirty.