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.
Well folks, I was hoping for a nicer weekend. I am surprised how long the rain is sticking around this morning, maybe it was a good thing I stayed home. That is soup is good, lots of garlic and spices. I know what I’ll be dipping in the fresh homemade whole-wheat bread the rest of today.
Good morning! Where did September go? Got washed away with the rain. I’m glad I’m not camping this morning, though if I headed north or west it probably wouldn’t be too bad. Rain and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a north-northwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 54 degrees. Cool and damp, I have my windows closed.
Today will have showers likely, mainly before 11am. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 70 degrees at 5pm. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 27th. Maximum dew point of 59 at 2pm. Northwest wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 62 degrees. The record high of 88 was set in 1905.
Not a great start to the day, I’m procrastinating on my morning walk 🚶. I was up at 5:30 but it’s a dark morning and now it’s raining out. ☔ The 15 bean soup is done and absolutely delicious. I have bread I made up earlier in the week and took out of the freezer, it will be good dipped in the soup. Nice smokey flavor from the smoked paprika and a nice under-note from the garlic and onions I chopped up on it. 🍲 Banana oatmeal pancakes made extra fluffy with baking soda topped with shredded mango and ginger with maple syrup. Yum 😋.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:46 pm with sun having an altitude of 44.7° from the due south horizon (-26.2° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.1 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:03 pm with the sun in the west (261°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (267°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:41 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:07 pm, which is one minute and 46 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:42 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 67 degrees. The dew point will be 58 degrees. There will be a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 50 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over yesterday.
Not sure what today’s plans are going to look like. I think it’s best to say it will be a stay home kind of day, but assuming it clears out it probably will involve a bike ride later on out to Voorheesville, Five Rivers or maybe both. I should go down to the library and get some books and work on the Internet too. I don’t think the rain is going to stop early enough though at this point for the sun to dry things out so I can paint over some of the rust spots on Big Red.
Tonight will have patchy fog after 3am. Otherwise, mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 53 degrees at 6am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 16th. Maximum dew point of 58 at 6pm. Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 46 degrees. The record low of 28 occurred back in 1993.
Ad revenue has been decent on the blog, 📺 I’ve been pulling in about $2.25 a day since I figured out the placement that I can live with. So that works out to be around $67 a month, though after hunting season is over I expected revenue to drop as there is less demand for my maps but it will pick up come May, might even top $100 a month as people seek places to camp and hike. ☺ Not going to make me rich, indeed the government will take probably a quarter in taxes🏛️ but I can look forward to a hundred dollar check every two months or so which will cover hosting and more incentive to create useful good content for the blog. 💵 And it’s not like I’m selling little trinkets soon destine for the landfill or burn barrel. 🛢️I’m really pleased with the quality of some of the ads I’m getting from local businesses though some are complete crap.
Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until Daylight Savings Time Ends 🛥️ when the sun will be setting at 5:46 pm with dusk at 6:14 pm. On that day in 2022, we had sunny, rather warm weather for November and temperatures between 71 and 46 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 54 degrees. But last year didn’t break the record high of 76 back in 1994.
I was going to take today off to go to the Adirondacks or Schoharie County or maybe the Green Mountains but the forecast is trending wetter then I expected. So I’m going to head into the office today to work and maybe reconsider a day off midweek next week to do something fun probably with the mountain bike.
Good morning! Yeah, it’s Friday! Rain and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ Calm wind. The dew point is 51 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 1 pm.
I guess I’m having the ultimate in fad breakfasts today, probably something they would eat on the colored television … 🥣 Reheated quinoa with chia seeds, topped with Greek yogurt, shredded apple with a ton of cinnamon and ginger and black coffee. ☕ I heard it’s National Coffee Day. Black is beautiful but don’t tell the teat strippers. 🐮 And I don’t want to drink too much, as my doctor says not to. 🚽 I did rehydrate well last night. At any rate, I actually doubt people on the colored television eat such things, 📺 not enough corporate profits manufacturing such things plus not enough sugar and saturated fats to keep people tossing it in their shopping carts. 🛒
Up and going this morning, ☺ with the rain I’m catching the early express downtown and will walk laps on the Plaza or the Knickerbocker Arena to get my steps 👣 as much as possible before work. I might walk down to the library 📚 after work, it depends on how wet it is but I could use a good book or two to read 📖. I really like getting up at five o’clock after getting to bed at nine. 🛏 Early to bed and early rise is great, especially when you have good meals cooking down on stove. 👨🍳 Not so much this morning, as I have plenty in my fridge cooked, and I’m cutting back on calories today after a heavy day yesterday.
Expensive day – $2,300 going out of the door 🚪 today for rent, car insurance, stock – bond purchases and the Roth IRA. That’s after getting paid $1,800 this week, so my account balance will drop to a hundred or so above the minimum. 🤯 I will have sufficient funds but I might tap my rainy day fund before my trip to West Virginia so I can retire some credit card 💳 debt early so I have extra room on my card for emergencies. It happens occasionally to the best of us. As my checking account isn’t interest bearing these days with inflation you don’t want to keep more than a few pennies above the minimum with the bank 🏦.
Today will rain, mainly after 7am. Cloudy 🌧, with a high of 60 degrees at 3pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 19th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 4pm. Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 62 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 1921.
I took off yesterday to do a day trip with my parents to the Adirondacks. ⛰ 📸 They’re getting up in the years and walking is hard for them so we didn’t go far from the car but in parts there was some nice color 🍂 and I showed them around Speculator, Piseco-Powley Road then Canal Place and Moss Island in Little Falls. It was a great trip, nice to spend a day with the family 👪 as in your forties you know those days won’t last forever. I made some really good hummus to have with lunch, mom made some good cheese and turkey wraps. 😋 Nice breeze on the lake, colors varied from good to quite muted. 🍁 We had a nice picnic on the shores of Lake Pleasant in Speculator then dinner at Poncho’s Mexican 🇲🇽 in Elsmere. It was good Mexican, the chips and food super greasy but that’s to be expected. Came home and had some edamame and butternut squash to have more fiber to tie down all those fats — with some ginger and tumerac because I like such things. 🌯 And no dessert. 😋 Chose a light breakfast today. It’s fun to have some junk with friends and family, especially knowing how fast time goes by so quickly.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:47 pm with sun having an altitude of 45° from the due south horizon (-25.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:05 pm with the sun in the west (261°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (268°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:42 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:09 pm, which is one minute and 46 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waning Gibbous 🌖 Moon in the east (86°) at an altitude of 2° from the horizon, 229,425 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:43 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 58 degrees. The dew point will be 53 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 50 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.
Times of rain this evening. 🌧, with a low of 52 degrees at 4am. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 18th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 6pm. North wind 3 to 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. 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 39 degrees. The record low of 28 occurred back in 1991.
The rain clears out for the Saturday. 😀 A chance of showers before 8am. Cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny, with a high near 68. North wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Not as nice of a forecast then they were predicting 🔮 but not a wash out.
I was originally planning on heading out to Rennselaerville State Forest and then Burnt-Rossman or maybe the Green Mountains 🌲🌳🏕️ before the forecast turned to rain ☔ today. Not sure what my weekend plans are now, I’m thinking I will rattle can over the rust on Big Red on Saturday.🖌️🛻 I could do an overnight somewhere but I have my doubts at this point. It might be better to stay closer to home, save some money, especially if I want to do some trail riding mid-week, and maybe head out of town next weekend. 🧀 Somehow I’m very interested in that whole Little Falls Cheese festival, which cow owners tell me is a really fun event to attend. This year Piseco-Powley would likely be at peak color for Columbus Day Weekend 🍂 so maybe that’s where I should go. The colors weren’t bad yesterday when I was up there with the folks.
Looking ahead to Sunday the first of October, sunny, ☀ with a high near 75. Maximum dew point of 57 at 4pm. Wow, that sounds like a beautiful day for starting out October. Basically perfect, when you figure the typical average high for the weekend is 68 degrees. 🎃 Next to make more meals with pumpkin, lol. That might be a good day to play around on the mountain bike trails on Wolf Hill. 🚲 That is if I don’t decide to do an overnight somewhere. I don’t know.
Looking ahead, there are 8 weeks until Buy Nothing Day 🛍️ when the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm with dusk at 4:57 pm (Standard Time). Day after Thanksgiving, seems so soon. 🦃 If there isn’t a ton of snow, I’ll probably head up north for that day, as rifle season is waning in those days. 🦌 Probably camp along NY 8, if I hike it will be a more popular trail with lots of blaze orange on. On that day in 2022, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 49 and 24 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 46 degrees. We hit a record high of 70 back in 2014.
I have an electric lantern and a electric lamps when I camp. It at one level doesn’t seem to make much sense to also use a propane lantern.
But the fact is I have the propane already for my camp stove and heater in cooler season, and the lantern uses relatively little fuel on the 20 lb tank compared to the camp stove and heater. The lantern doesn’t go dead like a battery does, it’s rare that I run out of propane as I fill the tank when it’s low.
It doesn’t accidentally get unplugged or go under voltage as the electricity sometimes does. It generally works well except in those exceptional cases when I break the glass globe – and then I often will keep a spare globe on hand.
Despite the nearly full moon, it was so dark last night at 7:30 pm while I was transferring buses by that guady old state office building downtown. It seems like more and more of the time I’m walking in the darkness or delaying my morning walk due to darkness. More time to enjoy delicious food I’m cooking up in the kitchen in the morning.
Good morning! Bumping over the Hump Day and the middle of the week and the night to day balance. Partly clear and 42 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌅 Calm wind. You’ll need your choke on this morning until it warms up this morning and maybe gloves 🧤. It’s a bit chilly this morning at least for the fingers on the morning walk. 🚶 Fog around and the air tastes of silage. 🐮 Autumn is here. 🍂 The fresh bread was good this morning. 🍞
Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 70 degrees at 3pm. Typical for today. Maximum dew point of 51 at 6pm. Northeast wind 3 to 6 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning, which became cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 68 degrees. The record high of 89 was set in 2017. Amazing how quickly the average temperature drops this time of year.
Bed time was at nine o’clock. 🛏 I rose at five to cook. Early to bed, early to rise. ☺ Peas soaked overnight, with pea soup cooked this morning for lunch. Whole wheat has been baked. The dough was been kneaded for ten minutes – I find watching YouTube helps pass the time and is rising overnight for morning baking. Also will bake squash and zucchini at the same time to save energy. On the griddle this morning was oatmeal – banana pumpkin pancakes topped with frozen strawberries. Yum!
Last night was brown rice, lentils, black beans with lots of turmeric and Chipotle pepper spice with green beans. 🍲 I cooked that this morning, made crispy in the broiler last. 🍏 Then non-fat plain Greek yogurt with shredded apples with ginger, cinnamon. Yum. It was a great to eat as I was hungry after attending a planning board meeting in Colonie regarding a proposed solar farm in the Albany Pine Bush.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:47 pm with sun having an altitude of 45.8° from the due south horizon (-25° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:09 pm with the sun in the west (262°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (269°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:46 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:12 pm, which is one minute and 46 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the east-southeast (112°) at an altitude of 10° from the horizon, 226,705 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:47 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 66 degrees. The dew point will be 51 degrees. There will be a east-northeast breeze at 5 mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 56 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃 , with a low of 44 degrees at 6am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 7th. Calm wind. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 52 degrees. The record low of 24 occurred back in 1947.
Last night I went up to a scoping overview meeting in Colonie over a proposal solar facility in the Albany Pine Bush, next to a known butterfly site. While they didn’t take scoping comment at this meeting, and I had to leave early to catch the bus home around 7 PM due to the next bus not being another hour, and it wouldn’t have worked with the connecting bus back home. I honestly didn’t want to drive up there, as I don’t have parking downtown, and Lynne was out of town so I couldn’t get a ride there, but it was important for as many Save the Pine Bush members as possible to be there.
Riding to the Colonie Town Hall on a bicycle at rush hour this evening was fun, bypassing all the cars stuck in traffic on the shoulder. 🚘 The hills on Lark Street aren’t that bad, Northern Boulevard is nice with the bike lanes, the merge onto US 9 from Northern Boulevard is a bit sketchy due to the narrow shoulder just past the ramp. The rest of US 9 for the most part has a good shoulder. Honestly, I did not mind the ride. Plus it got my exercise part of the day in with my morning commute downtown yesterday.
I do wish there was more CDTA Route 182 buses in the evening, had to leave the planning board meeting a few minutes early. 🚍 Or more daylight, I would have ridden back downtown if not already dark. But I certainly wasn’t going to ride US 9 after dark, especially without a bike taillight — which I lost this past weekend mountain biking up at the Thacher.
A picture perfect autumn weekend on tap. 🍁 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Maximum dew point of 58 at 12pm. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 76. Maximum dew point of 59 at 4pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 68 degrees. Heat wave! Even warmer next week. I really should take Friday off. Maybe I will.
I am also thinking of requesting off October 16-20th to go down to West Virginia. This is the week after Columbus Day Weekend, probably somewhat beyond peak color, though I expect it to be late this year due to the mild weather. That said, it will very a lot depending on my elevation, and I’m not necessarily set on going all the way to WV — it’s such a long multi-day drive in my old truck. I could do a trip to Allegheny National Forest as an alternative, or maybe the Tug Hill Plateau and North Country. That’s a trip I will explore this afternoon most likely as a blog post.
Looking ahead but maybe not forward, next Wednesday is Last Sunset After 6:30 PM 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 6:33 pm with dusk at 7:00 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 60 and 47 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 67 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1891.
1) Debt is evil, don’t make it. If you can’t afford to buy something with cash, you can’t afford it. Your poor. Be a grown up and accept that fact.
2) Live in poverty. It’s always bad to have money in your bank account, because it doesn’t earn much interest and means it will get spent on things that you’ll spend later to get rid of at the landfill. I rarely have more then a $1,000 in the bank, because I’d rather live paycheck-to-paycheck, knowing that every time I look at my bank account I can’t afford to buy junk. Lock the rest of the money up in investments and savings accounts, the later that offers more flexibility during emergencies and for buying bigger purchases after a few years.
3) Remember 90% of things you buyare going to either become poop or smell like burnt plastic in the burn barrel within 2 weeks of buying it. While we all like playing with fire, watching things melt, and colorful flames, buying things to set on fire is a waste of money. So in other words, don’t buy it.
4) Do antagonize over $20 purchases. Little things add up quickly. Do you really need it? Anything that is non-essential should not be purchased — even if you like watching plastic melt and burn.
5) Don’t take a raise — or at least the majority of a raise. Rather then taking a raise, use automatic deposits to savings accounts, 401ks, IRAs, or any other vehicle that defers the money to make raise never appear in your bank account rather then take it and spend it.
6) Always look for lower-cost ways of doing things. Does the government offer the service for free or low-cost? Public libraries, public transportation, and public forest lands are free (or low cost) for your use and enjoyment.
7) Try to save more then you spend each week. If you take home $1,300 then invest $700 of that check a wide variety of ways. It’s okay to withdraw money every few years for a big purchase, but at least you’ll be getting a better deal then most by buying it with money that has earned compounded interest rather then paying finance charges.
8) Sales are horseshit. Buying things on sale usually is a bad way to save money on the purchase, unless you’ve been deferring a necessary purchase for a number of months.
9) Celebrate when the stock market goes down. It means you can buy more stock for less money. Stock paper is just that — it has no value until you it cash it in. You shouldn’t give a rats ass about the stock market going down — except to look forward to the deals you are going to get. You shouldn’t be buying stock paper unless it’s for long-term goals, that can be sold when the market is booming.
10) Cheap, diverse investments are better then expensive ones. Self-investing in boring, uninteresting broad-based funds are better. If you don’t understand an investment, then you shouldn’t be investing it. Have a dozen different ways of investing with different banks, different funds, and different investment types. It’s good to bet against your own investments with mutually opposing investments. If one thing goes bad, you’ll have other things to fall back.
11) Keeping buying a little bit of your investments each week, when you get paid. The fancy financial types call this cost-based-averaging. It’s also not bad idea to wait until the market drops back down and convert some savings to stock, but be patient and wait for a good drop in the market. When people have been panicking on Wall Street for a week, that’s a good time to drop that $5,000 or $10,000 you don’t really need and toss it in the market for the hell of it — knowing that you might never get the money back — but you might also make out well.
12) Pretend money in retirement accounts and stocks, unmature certificate of deposits is totally inaccessible and for all intents and purposes does not exist. I mean I think have a ballpark idea what is in my investment accounts, but I don’t really give that much of dang, because it changes every day. I’m betting that in 20 years it will be a bigger amount. And for all intents and purposes, stock paper is an imaginary money — as stock paper has zero value until you cash it out.
I was riding the 182 back from a public meeting in Colonie last night after dark. No less than 3 people boarding the bus through Arbor Hill’s rougher neighborhood didn’t pay their fare. They had their excuses – app didn’t work, didn’t have exact or enough change, they were broke. The driver just waved them on, probably not wanting to get knifed, assaulted or cause unnecessary disruption. It’s the ghetto.
To be fair, we’ve all had similar issues – the app is far from perfect, the card doesn’t auto renew properly, you dropped your dime somewhere, you forgot to ask for a transfer when boarding the bus back when those were a thing. But you know probably with the high number of non payment of fares through Arbor Hill it’s likely that not all of them were accidental or equipment failures. Seems kind of unfair after you’ve paid your fare.
That said, I don’t agree with necessarily a crack down on fare evasion. How do determine legitimate vs non legitimate non payment of fares? I don’t think drivers should argue with passengers and risk getting assaulted over non payment or stop the bus and await for the police to arrive and sort out the ordeal, especially when some non payment may be legitimate. Keeping the bus schedule is more important as people have connecting buses and jobs to get to. And it’s not like even fares are a big revenue source for the authority – it’s only about a 1/5th or less of revenue – the rest is taxes and government grants that keep the authority afloat.
I think the do think that the solution is to continue to adopt more universal access programs where employers – often of lower income employees – pay a fee to CDTA in exchange for allowing employees to ride the bus for free by tapping their card. Which is great for those employees who work for such employers, assuming they haven’t misplaced their cards or there isn’t a bug in the system.
But like private health insurance, too many people are left out. The unemployed and seniors don’t get Universal Access. Many don’t get this benefit from college or work — I do wish my employer participated. It’s why I support making all buses fare free, avoiding the hassles and delays of fare payments – and increasing the focus on moving the buses down the road and getting people to their destination over tiny, obnoxious little nuisance fares.
Writing reveals something about yourself, and putting it on the internet exposes yourself for all the world to see.
While not maybe not all of the world reads your blog, you know the great damage you can do to yourself by expressing your thoughts to the world. You’ve certainly seen when celebrities and even half-bit middle managers have fallen from grace, lost their jobs due to stupid social media posts gone viral.
I generally stay away from politics and controversial matters on my blog, and a definitely don’t post controversial things to social media. But like many people, I have my views on the issues of the day, and I try to write thoughtful commentary about them on my little corner of the internet. Yet every time I write a bit, I know there is somewhat a risk, especially if my views don’t reflect the popular sentiment of the day. But sometimes it’s worth it to express oneself, especially when it’s a bit off the harsh light that social media often casts one’s words.
I have my own views. I am a conservative, and people respect me for my views. I am pro-environment, but I like my guns and the rural life with it’s cows, trees, bonfires and big jacked up trucks. I’m also a Democrat, I work for the Democratic Majority and I work hard to defend the interest of my paying clients, even if I don’t agree with them on every issues. Truth is I can’t think of a client I ever worked with which I fully agreed with on every issue, but I worked hard to get their message out and defend them politically. I don’t talk about my clients or even too much what I do professionally on the internet bar the broad strokes which are public record. You can figure out what I do for a living and how much I earn by visiting NYS Board of Elections and See Through NY, or the Assembly’s Public Information Office.
As I’ve gotten older, I enjoy less and less the public sphere, that is attending public meetings and fighting development in the Albany Pine Bush or attending protests and rallies. I generally shun newspaper columns, I don’t write letters to editor regularly, nor do I post anything political on social media. My blog while not private, is a controlled environment, where I can share my views, while controlling the format they are displayed and who can comment on each post. No name calling or inappropriate threads get started on my blog, as I have to approve comments and can delete or moderate as I so choose. Things only trend on my blog, as much as I left them trend on the feed.
This is part of the reason I thought about shutting down my blog, besides the sheer cost of running it — now hopefully defrayed significantly by advertising. I kind of don’t like how well I’ve gotten known from the maps I’ve made up over the years, it gets harder and harder to travel anonymously when people recognize Big Red parked places, along with my camping set up. At the same time, it does tickle me how many people know about my blog. Yet, sometimes I do wish I could go places, especially in the back country, without being a minor-half-bit internet celebrity.
I think it’s best to say it will be a stay home kind of day, but assuming it clears out it probably will involve a bike ride later on out to Voorheesville, Five Rivers or maybe both. I should go down to the library and get some books and work on the Internet too. 
I don’t think the rain is going to stop early enough though at this point for the sun to dry things out so I can paint over some of the rust spots on Big Red. 
Whole wheat has been baked. The dough was been kneaded for ten minutes – I find watching YouTube helps pass the time and is rising overnight for morning baking. Also will bake squash and zucchini at the same time to save energy. On the griddle this morning was oatmeal – banana pumpkin pancakes 
topped with frozen strawberries. 
Yum!
in Colonie over a proposal solar facility in the Albany Pine Bush, next to a known butterfly site. 
While they didn’t take scoping comment at this meeting, and I had to leave early to catch the bus home 
around 7 PM due to the next bus not being another hour, and it wouldn’t have worked with the connecting bus back home. I honestly didn’t want to drive up there, as I don’t have parking downtown, and Lynne was out of town so I couldn’t get a ride there, but it was important for as many Save the Pine Bush members as possible to be there.
This is the week after Columbus Day Weekend, probably somewhat beyond peak color, though I expect it to be late this year due to the mild weather. 
That said, it will very a lot depending on my elevation, and I’m not necessarily set on going all the way to WV — it’s such a long multi-day drive in my old truck. I could do a trip to Allegheny National Forest as an alternative, or maybe the Tug Hill Plateau and North Country. That’s a trip I will explore this afternoon most likely as a blog post.
