The Rattlesnake Hill Wildlife Management Area is a 5,100 acre upland tract, situated approximately eight miles west of Dansville, New York. Roughly two-thirds of the area lies in southern Livingston County, while the remaining third lies in northern Allegany County. The tract was purchased in the 1930’s under the Federal Resettlement Administration and is one of several such areas turned over to DEC for development as a wildlife management area.
The area is appropriately named after the Timber Rattlesnake, which may be occasionally found in the more remote sections of the “Hill”.
The area offers an interesting blend of upland habitats such as mature woodland, overgrown fields, conifer plantations, old growth apple orchards and open meadows.
The area is inhabited by a variety of game species and is open to public hunting. The white-tailed deer, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, grey squirrel, cottontail rabbit and woodcock are found on the area. An occasional snowshoe hare may be observed adjacent to thick creek bottom brush or conifer plantation habitats.
A number of small marsh units have been developed and provide limited hunting for waterfowl. Some of the area’s furbearing species such as mink, beaver and raccoon may be occasionally viewed at these marsh units.
It’s very much an open question when so many of the top Trump officials from 2020 now are justice involved if not serving prison sentences for their involvement in the insurrection. A future administration is going to require tens of thousands of patronage employees but many may not be willing to step up because of the risk to their careers and reputation.
Often working in a presidential administration is the capstone of a career. But for so many appointees in the first term of Trump, they faced extensive political pressure to violate norms and even laws, not only putting their personal ethics at question but also subjecting themselves to criminal penalties and fines, not to mention risks to their future.
While there are millions of Americans to pick from and there are inevitably Trump supporters who’d love to join his administration, most are likely not the experienced, seasoned professionals who you would hope the President would attract as advisors.
Two loafs of bread, rice and lentils, beans soup cooking down on the stove. It’s good that I have so much food cooking on the stove this morning as I haven’t turned the heat on except for the electric blanket. Kind of a cold morning but I’m enjoying it and are out for my morning walk.
Good morning! Clear and 21 degrees at the Delmar, NY. 🌅 Calm wind. Things will start to thaw out at around 9 am. 🌡️Seven weeks until 2024.
I’m out walking 🚶 this morning, kind of enjoying the cold ❄. It’s a rather crisp morning but a nice sunrise. I think I’ll enjoy the coffee ☕ even more when I get home. I am going to be wearing my gloves 🧤 when I ride to work. 🚲 I kind of like the cold. It’s good as who knows how many more days I’ll be riding to work, though if it’s snow-free or rain-free I’ll try to do the mornings. In the evenings, I’ll be taking the express home. 🚌
Today will have increasing clouds ☀ 👉 ☁, with a high of 42 degrees at 2pm. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 3rd. Light and variable wind becoming south 5 to 10 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 49 degrees. The record high of 69 was set in 1964. 6.0 inches of snow fell back in 1886.❄
I am not super disappointed with staying in town this past weekend. 🌥 It was definitely cloudier and cooler then they had at first predicted. 🏘 Plus I had a great bike ride on Saturday, heading from home in Delmar to outside of Halfmoon on the Champlain Canal Trip. Sometimes you don’t have to spend a lot of money for a great weekend adventure. 😀 That said, I’m hoping for good weather come Black Friday, to get to back to the Adirondacks at least one more time for the year.
I did forget however to get squash when I was at the grocery store this past weekend. 🎃 Not a big thing but I would have liked some fresh baked squash of some sort this morning when I was baking. Instead, I ended up cooking up two loafs of bread. 🍞 It kept the oven full but I do like squash. Maybe I should run at lunch time some point this week to Price Chopper Downtown and get some squash — or Hannaford on the bike ride 🚴♀️ but the thing is I have enough food cooked up for now, that I don’t really need squash. Been a few weeks since I’ve had spaghetti squash, maybe that’s what I should get. Wednesday is farmer’s market day, might be a good day to get some. 🍆
Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:41 am with sun having an altitude of 29.5° from the due south horizon (-41.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 10.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:54 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (239°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (246°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:36 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 11 seconds with dusk around 5:05 pm, which is 59 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:40 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 41 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 9 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 51 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 11 seconds over today.
Getting up at 5 AM this morning to bake bread ⏰ means I’m tired, especially as I didn’t get to bed until a little after 9 PM 🛌 and then I awoke a few times during the night to run to the rest room. 🚽 It’s fine, I am often in a bit of a haze on a Monday but I think the cold air is helping a bit 🌬 as I ride my bike downtown. I figure I have the rest of the week to wake myself up. 😴 I’ll just hide behind my desk, slog through more cap grants.
Tonight will have a slight chance of rain and snow showers before 3am, then a chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 32 degrees at 4am. Typical for tonight. South wind 5 to 8 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. Sounds like it will hold off for the evening walk. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 27 degrees. The record low of 12 occurred back in 1996.
Seasonably cool and sunny for opening weekend in the SZ. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 50. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 46. Typical average high for the weekend is 48 degrees. Probably not what the hunters want but I’m not complaining. The following Monday or maybe Tuesday is pay day for me, which then hopefully I can start to pay back the loan I made from my various savings accounts to cover my credit card balance. 💳 I hate robbing Peter to Pay Paul but I’m a lot better off then many people. Between the car insurance, the blog hosting contract, summer and autumn vacations, needing better fitting clothes and healthier foods, money has just been flying out the doors lately — and don’t forget inflation. 💸 It’s really bad the way my budget looks currently.
With rifle season underway in the Southern Zone I’ll be staying close to home, but the following weekend I’m thinking of heading up to either the East Branch Sacanadaga or maybe Piseco-Powley if the snow risk seems low. 🏕 Probably the prior, even though I don’t like the noise there from the highway, I do like the fact I haven’t been there in years, the snow risk is relatively low, and it will be quiet people wise, especially as many hunters filter down to SZ for more action there. Probably also do a NZ hike, wearing blaze orange, on a more remote trail but one less likely to have much hunter pressure. 🚶♀️ 🦌 But that’s still two weekends away and weather could change.
Maybe this upcoming weekend though I’ll go mountain biking in the Albany Pine Bush 🚵♀️ hit up Aldi’s up that way and check out India Farmer’s Market for food and Salvation Army for more good-fitting clothes, especially dress clothes for work. 👔 I’ve gotten some nice stuff from the Salvation Army, but you have to watch out for stains and other imperfections. But being so much lighter these days 🤰 I fit into a lot more used clothing that is often quite good quality if you know what to look for.
Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until Cyber Monday 🛍️ when the sun will be setting at 4:26 pm with dusk at 4:55 pm. On that day in 2022, we had rain and temperatures between 48 and 29 degrees. I might take that day off from work, to be as far away from Cybering as possible. Typically, the high temperature is 45 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 1896.
Deciding to take a trip out to Madison County a week after West Virginia made me realize in how many ways the landscapes are similar, even while they are different. Less coal and more cows in Madison County, but many of rural homesteads and farms really aren’t that different. Hills are smaller and hollows less deep, but in many ways the people are all alike, trying to make a living out of a tough, rural landscape.
Modern American culture is much more standardized then one might want to admit. We all use and consume same products, the J.D. tractors in New York aren’t that different then West Virginia. Mobile homes and double-wides look much the same, the same breeds of goat and cattle are raised all over. People raise hogs and chickens all over, the make-shift shelters and pens really don’t look all that much different. The wood and coal smoke isn’t all that much different nor the pungent smell of farm country in the autumn after and during harvest time.
We are often told that West Virginia is somehow different then New York. But if anything, the accents aren’t much different or indeed in some parts of rural New York the accents might be even stronger. The thing is most things aren’t that different, as rural culture is both nationalized, as are products and services. And the land is the land, livestock husbandry that works in one part of nation works equally well in other parts of nation, using similar products. And people generally scrape by a living in much the same way, no matter which part of the rural country they reside in.
Vermin usually win. Seriously, they’re called vermin not only because they’re a pest, be it because they kill livestock like coyotes do, or chew holes in walls and into food like mice do, but because they’re damn hard to control and win a war against.
Yesterday was fun with that 46 mile bike ride up to Halfmoon. Lots of interesting history, learning about the Old Champlain Canal and GE Silicone as I rode over the old Waterford dump and the past the massive slag piles from GE Silicone. The Champlain Canal was very quiet though Peebles Island was packed so I didn’t dwell there.
Good morning! Happy Sunday. Up bright and early, ran to Stewart’s around 5:30 to get milk 🐮 for my coffee. ☕ Partly clear and 29 degrees in Delmar. 🌅 There is a northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. Still a while until the sun rises, but at least things will start to thaw out at around 7 am. 🌡️ That said, not going to be a real warm day today.
Fried up two onions this morning 🍳 with lots of delicious turmeric, mushrooms, spinach, kidney beans and of course two eggs scrambled up and topped with Parmesan cheese and nutritional yeast and hot sauce. I am like yum and quite healthy to boot. With that banana I had for a side, 🍌 I should be good for a while. Which is good as my pantry is getting a bit bare, going to go shopping relatively early this morning to avoid the crowds — maybe around 9 AM. Probably go to Walmart but I’ll follow up with a visit to Price Chopper as I’ll want to get King Arthur Whole Wheat flour for baking bread this week — and maybe make flatbread wraps too. 🍞 I figure shower 🚿 and get a good early start today. 😴 I’ve been up since a little after 5 AM.
Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 43 degrees at 2pm. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 30th. North wind around 6 mph. Kind of a cool day, it would have been even cooler if I had gone to Vermont. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 71 degrees. The record high of 68 was set in 1909. 7.3 inches of snow fell back in 1968.❄
Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:40 am with sun having an altitude of 29.7° from the due south horizon (-41.1° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 10.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:56 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (239°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (247°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:37 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 10 seconds with dusk around 5:06 pm, which is one minute and one second earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:41 pm. At sunset, look for clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 40 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 6 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 53 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 15 seconds over today.
So yesterday was a fun day. 🚲 The ride to Peebles Island wasn’t bad, though I didn’t particularly enjoy the part through Green Island as that section is entirely on-road though the rest of the trail is segregated from highway traffic. It’s good, I’ll keep this in mind for future weekends, maybe explore some of Troy or Peebles Island when it’s hopefully less crowded. It was a good bit of exercise.
Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 22 degrees at 6am. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 17th. Calm wind. Might have to even turn on the heat tonight. ♨️ In 2022, we had light rain in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 36 degrees. The record low of 13 occurred back in 1981.
Tomorrow going to start another 5-day work week, 🏢 working downtown in the office but I expect a relatively busy weekend, and it should go by quickly. Might be nice enough to ride to work several days next week, saving on bus fare and benefiting health 🚲 though obviously I’ll be busing it home at end of the day as it will be dark by a little after four. The following week is a 3-day week
Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:53 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 31 and 20 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 40 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1966.
It’s frustrating that the Empire Trail from Albany to Waterford is almost all off city streets except in Green Island where the Empire Trail doesn’t run because Green Island is the Staten Island of Albany County and hates bicycles. Literally the seperate bike tail ends at both ends of the village lines. There is no reason why a lot of trail couldn’t be either bike lanes or entirely segregated from village traffic like it is in Cohoes and Waterviliet.
You can do IDW interpolation of missing Census Tracts fairly easily in R using the gstat library. The key is to make sure you use a projected dataset. Other interpolation methods are covered here: https://rspatial.org/raster/analysis/4-interpolation.html
# calculate the percentage of veterans per census tract acs <- mutate(acs, vet_per = VeteranE/TotalE)
# create a copy of census tracts, dropping any NA values # from vet_per field vetNA <- acs %>% drop_na(vet_per)
# a raster should be created to do interpolation into r <- raster(vetNA, res=1000)
# set the foruma based on field (vet_per) that contains # the veterans percent to interpolate. This use IDW interpolation # for all points, weighting farther ones less gs <- gstat(formula = vet_per~1, locations = vetNA)
# interpolate the data (average based on nearby points) nn <- interpolate(r, gs)
# extract the median value of the raster interpolation from the original shapefile, # into a new column set as est acs<- cbind(acs, est=exactextractr::exact_extract(nn, acs, fun='median'))
# replace any NA values with interpolated data so the map doesn't contain # holes. You should probably mention that missing data was interpolated when # sharing your map. acs <- acs %>% mutate(vet_per = ifelse(is.na(vet_per), est, vet_per))
