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.
See I slept in a bit before filling the top of the stove up with various pots and pans cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner. It involved some ginger but also much turmeric and veggies plus eggs, rice and beans. Plus chickpeas for hummus, some baking for wraps and coffee so I could keep pissing my life away. And now I’m out walking.
Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Partly cloudy ⛅ and 49 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The skies will clear around 11 am.
Second gear ⚙ of the week. Things went pretty smoothly on the first day of the week. But as some who owns a truck with a 4L60E tranny, it’s the 2-3 gear shift you got to watch. It’s the one with the big clunk at times. But so far I’m feeling great. I’m doing my best to stay away from the days of six NNNNNNs like all Silverados get eventually with the . Those days will come eventually but got to enjoy life in the meantime. Do what you can when you still can. Big Red is humming along well, as am I but I know that day will come someday as occasionally I get rough 2-3rd shift. But my truck has 105k on it and it’s hitting 12 years old in less then a month with 35 inch tires and getting beat on rough roads on hills. That said, I’ve been thinking a bit more about Taco’ trucks and 3/4rd ton. 🛻 Not sure if I’ll go bigger or smaller, but probably less fancy with a regular cab unless I go with a Taco’ truck then I’ll want the space. 🛞 I think though it will be good for at least one more winter, and should be good for vacation in a few weeks. 😀
Today will be partly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly sunny 🌥 👉 ☀ , with a high of 67 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 3rd. Maximum dew point of 51 at 10am. North wind 5 to 7 mph becoming east in the afternoon. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 71 degrees. The record high of 90 was set in 2017.
So I have that hummus to make up 🥣 with the chickpeas boiling up on the stove and getting silky soft and then pack lunch 🎒 take a shower 🚿 and then ride to work. 🚲 Gears have been greased and adjusted and ready for the week. I am going to add to the hummus jalapeño and tomato topping, 🍅 after saying my parents wouldn’t have any tomatoes they did. But they did, and I lucked out and it was good. That made me so happy, as I thought the fresh tomato season was almost done. I figure maybe a few more weeks at farm markets or Shauls for tomatoes, but soon it will be grocery store tomatoes or even canned tomatoes. 🥫
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:48 pm with sun having an altitude of 46.2° from the due south horizon (-24.6° 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 6:11 pm with the sun in the west (263°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (269°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:48 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 53 seconds with dusk around 7:14 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the southeast (126°) at an altitude of 14° from the horizon, 226,292 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:49 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 64 degrees. The dew point will be 49 degrees. There will be a east breeze at 6 mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 59 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃 , with a low of 43 degrees at 6am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 9th. Light and variable wind. In 2022, we had partly cloudy skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 50 degrees. The record low of 24 occurred back in 1947.
I am continuing to play with advertising positioning on the blog 📺 which I know is annoying, and I hate it but I want to work it into the blog where I can make some revenue, cover my costs, without being too obnoxious. Most of the products are pretty scammy, but do check out their websites if they have products that interest you so I can get the half of penny or so. My goal is to make about $2 a day on advertising, which isn’t a lot of money, but will mean that I get a $100 check after taxes every two months or so to cover the cost of the blog, and maybe even inspire me to create some new maps and interesting content.
A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 74. Maximum dew point of 57 at 11am. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 75. Maximum dew point of 58 at 12pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 68 degrees. I really should plan on going somewhere fun this weekend!
Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until Halloween 🎃 when the sun will be setting at 5:51 pm with dusk at 6:19 pm. On that day in 2022, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 64 and 37 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 56 degrees. We hit a record high of 75 back in 2019.
A simple morning this morning – cream of wheat, topped with ground up apples, cinnamon, ginger, chia seeds 0that quinoa I had in the fridge. The ginger really gives a nice kick to breakfast and it’s supposed to help with inflammation but I mostly just love the taste.
Good morning! Rise and grind. Monday’s come back around again. Rain showers and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a north-northwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 53 degrees. The skies will clear around 5 pm.
Like usual I was up early at five 5⃣ so I decided to catch the early express bus downtown. 🚍 Maybe the rain would have ended early and I could have ridden home but it hard to say and the rain would have taken off at that nice lubrication I had put on the bike chain yesterday. ⚙ Most of the rest of the week will be good for bicycling to work 🚲 plus I need to get to the store and get some garlic cloves 🧄 which somehow fell off my grocery list when shopping yesterday. 🛒
Today will have a chance of showers, mainly before 10am. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 67 degrees at 3pm. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 3rd. Maximum dew point of 56 at 2pm. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth 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 66 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 2017.
Not the nicest day ever, 🌧 actually a pretty darn dreary day, but I’m going to try to get in 5,000 steps in before work by waking laps and the stairs at the Empire Plaza. I am up early and if I can’t walk outside, I will definitely try to get my steps inside. 👣 Tomorrow I figure I’ll ride to work, and the same on Wednesday. Thursday before tripping up to the Adirondacks with my parents, I’ll probably do my usual morning walk or maybe if it’s really nice and I’m up early do a quick ride out to Five Rivers 🐦 around dawn.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:48 pm with sun having an altitude of 46.6° from the due south horizon (-24.2° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:12 pm with the sun in the west (263°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (270°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:50 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:16 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the southeast (141°) at an altitude of 17° from the horizon, 226,549 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:51 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 65 degrees. The dew point will be 55 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 2 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.
The new data structure is implemented on the blog 🗺 which cuts page loading time, saves a ton of space, eliminates several thousand lines of custom code, and just makes things a lot more pleasant for me on the maintance side, including making it easier to upload new maps. 🤷 Why did I not implement this sooner? Well I didn’t think it would save so much space, and I was afraid of transitioning over the old content, with all the files that it would involve. Turned out not to be as bad of a conversion as I thought, and the user experience doesn’t change a bit.
Also turned on Google AdSense, with fairly conservative settings. I don’t love having ads on my blog, but it should help with the ever growing hosting bills. 💵 It wasn’t that difficult to implement in the code, and I’m not running that many ads, so if you don’t scroll through a lot of pages or scroll down far, you might never see them. I don’t like advertising, but you don’t run ads, there isn’t a chance of getting any money at all. The way I look at it — an investment in the future of the blog, and it doesn’t require a lot of work on my part.
Tonight will have patchy fog after 5am. Otherwise, partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 49 degrees at 5am. Typical for tonight. Southeast wind around 6 mph becoming light and variable. 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 53 degrees. The record low of 29 occurred back in 1947.
Thursday going up to the Adirondacks with the folks 🍂 to do some leaf peeping and enjoying the fall foliage. Probably go up to Speculator and then down back around through Piseco-Powley Road or NY 10. Have a picnic lunch. 🥪 It will be a nice day with the family, should be a good sunny day 😎 as I can’t do Thursday and Friday looks to be a bit more cloudy. ⛅ That said the weekend currently looks great.
A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 71. Maximum dew point of 54 at 11am. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 73. Maximum dew point of 55 at 11am. Typical average high for the weekend is 68 degrees. I kind of would rather go camping during the Columbus Day Weekend, but this one looks so good too. Maybe I’ll do Rensselearville State Forest again. 🌲 That way I can get out to the folks house relatively early, as they’re doing lasagana this weekend. Really looking forward to that.
Looking ahead, there are 7 weeks until Average Night Below Freezing 🌌 when the sun will be setting at 4:36 pm with dusk at 5:05 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2022, we had partly cloudy and temperatures between 49 and 36 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 50 degrees. We hit a record high of 69 back in 1964.
It’s not pouring out this morning, but hardly a beautiful morning. Dark for sure, but then I get up early and the sun rises late. Up again at 5 AM, but I was asleep before 8 PM and I enjoy getting up early and having a good breakfast, and getting a jump on my day.Too dark to walk this morning so far, but I might go out in a bit.
Good morning! Happy Sunday. Rain showers around and 54 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a north-northwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 51 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 3 pm.
No big meals cooking up in the kitchen this morning, 🥞 but I tried unsuccessfully to turn quinoa into pancakes like I do with oatmeal and bananas. I mean it was tasty on the griddle fried up, but even with mashed bananas and apples, I could not get it to bind together. It doesn’t have the gluten that oatmeal or flour has. It was worth a try. I’ve tried cleaning the quinoa better to get rid of more of that bitter taste, and it was better but after refrigerating it and washing again, still not great. It supposed to be a wonderful grain, but my results with it have been mixed. Almost too fussy for my bother, I’d rather stick with old fashioned oatmeal, whole wheat flour or traditional cream of wheat, the later which I fully admit isn’t whole-grain but I usually pair it with chia seeds, greek yogurt, fruit — and cream of wheat is “fortified” with some vitamins, so it’s hardly junk food.
Today will have a chance of showers. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 63 degrees at 4pm. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 12th. Maximum dew point of 57 at 3pm. North wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. 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 68 degrees. The record high of 90 was set in 2017.
I was thinking about heading up to Keehler Preserve some time this morning 🚵♀️ and do some riding after a fun day at Thacher Park riding about 20 miles, mostly trail riding. Getting better and more comfortable mountain biking. It’s not like urban or bike path riding. Totally different set of skills, to get comfortable dealing with rocks and roots and rough trails. I am less fearful of bumps and destroying my bike, though I don’t abuse it too much. I do loose my tail light on my bike, bumping over the rough trail, but it was an old one at this point and I should replace it with a brighter one. I am going to have to do some Internet research on what good lights are 💡 especially now the mornings and evenings are getting shadowy and dark, and it’s important to be seen, especially when commuting. Come the time change in six weeks, I’ll probably still ride in many mornings, but I’ll have to load my bike on the bus and ride home in the evening.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:48 pm with sun having an altitude of 47° from the due south horizon (-23.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:14 pm with the sun in the west (264°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (270°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:51 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:18 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south-southeast (155°) at an altitude of 19° from the horizon, 227,464 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:52 pm. At sunset, look for more rain 🌧 and temperatures around 61 degrees. The dew point will be 55 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 7 mph. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 5 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.
I probably should go to Walmart and buy more groceries and supplies. 🛒 I should go fairly early to avoid the crowds, though honestly I could wait until tomorrow after work. I would like to get more oatmeal and I’m out of frozen fruit. 🍐 🍓 I could go to the car wash and power wash Blackie 🚵 and Big Red. 🛻 Not planning on heading camping next weekend but if it’s nice next weekend I might rattle can some of the rust on my truck before the salt spreaders are back on road. 🚶 I might walk first though.
Tonight will have a chance of more rain, mainly before 4am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 55 degrees at 5am. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 11th. Maximum dew point of 55 at 6pm. North wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2022, we had clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 49 degrees. The record low of 29 occurred back in 1963.
Looking ahead, next Sunday is October 🎃 when the sun will be setting at 6:38 pm with dusk at 7:05 pm. On that day in 2022, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 69 and 46 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 68 degrees. I can’t believe how quickly the average temperature drops as we get past the equinox and autumn is well underway. Plus how short days are now. But that’s to be expected.. We hit a record high of 90 back in 1927.
All week I’ve been getting up at 5 AM to cook. I’m awake early and I’m up to run to the bathroom, so I usually start with a soup, stew, beans or rice on the stove and homemade bread in the oven. And oatmeal – banana pancakes or a pound of spinach and vegetables with two eggs mixed in for binder on cast iron pan on a different burner before the morning walk at 6:20. Then usually by 8 am the soup and beans are done simmering and I have a good meal come dinner time. Usually as dinner warms up in the evening I knead dough, prepare beans to soak, chop vegetables or tidy up the kitchen. Then I retire to bed by 8 or 9 pm as I tired and it’s dark out. Plus my electric bill is up due to all the cooking, lol.
I won’t say I’m a good cook or I eat much standard American fare these days but I like to control what I put in my body and make good basic foods that I can understand. I rarely use more than a handful of minimally processed ingredients in any dish, even my bread is simple – whole wheat flour, water and yeast – and a very small amount of salt and no sugar. I really don’t use recipes as most are too complicated and unhealthy for my tastes. Probably people think I’m werid.
That said it’s officially autumn however you want to slice it. Summer is just history and in a day or two it will be more night than day. My mind is totally on West Virginia and the Mountain Laurel of Canaan Heights not that I’ve even taken off those days yet. Or even fully planned a vacation.
Good morning! Happy Saturday. Finally the Nature Bus 🚍 Day! Mostly cloudy and 50 degrees at the Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind.The skies will clear Monday around 5 am.
It’s kind of silly how much I love the Nature Bus 😍 as I could drive to Thacher Park myself and I have a parks pass for parking 🅿 but it’s fun as it enforces a schedule and doesn’t cost anything. 💵 Not going to be a really nice day but I don’t expect it to be a complete soaker either. Going to ride trail for a while 🚵 then probably hammock before catching the 3:30 back home. If it becomes a soaker there are pavilions and the Discovery Center with the nice porch and wifi to shelter under.
Today will have a slight chance of showers after 2pm. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 63 degrees at 3pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 12th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 9am. Calm wind becoming northeast 5 to 7 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 59 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1895.
This morning I was up and cooking 🍳 around five like I often do. Two big baguettes 🥖 and chicken and veggies roasting down in the oven. Up top was onion, garlic, and zucchini cooking to be cooked with eggs 🥚 and fresh spinach before it goes bad. Used up the last two fresh tomotoes that I had. Nevertheless a good start to the morning. Made some walnut butter 🥜 to spread on the fresh bread – so yummy 😋. Then I did morning walk 🚶. I didn’t sleep great but I have been getting to bed early as it gets dark early.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:49 pm with sun having an altitude of 47.4° from the due south horizon (-23.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:16 pm with the sun in the west (265°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (271°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:53 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 53 seconds with dusk around 7:19 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south (170°) at an altitude of 19° from the horizon, 228,989 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:54 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 62 degrees. The dew point will be 50 degrees. There will be a northeast breeze at 7 mph. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 7 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.
I think the evening will end in rain ☔. But I have a delicious meal in the fridge ready to go 🍴 and I’ll probably work on the blog re-write. I want to phase in the new data structure for the blog this coming week and start up the ads to cover hosting costs. 🖥 And then lights out 💡 early tonight again.
Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly before 2am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 53 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 16th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 6pm. North wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth 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 41 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1963.
My blog got approved for Google Ad Sense. 🤬 I don’t love advertising and I’m going to use sparingly, but my hope is to generate about $30 a month from advertising primarily from the map pages, but also some of the archives and maybe the main feed but not right up top. I figure if I can make an average of $30 a month, a third will go to the tax man, then the $20 will cover hosting costs and maybe even cover a bus fare or something like that. I have the code ready to add the advertising to the blog, I am manually placing ads, not in the best positions but in ways that aren’t so obnoxious but do earn a bit in revenue, based on the high number of page views I get from my maps, especially in the summer. 🗺 I figure it’s an incentive to get off my ass and make up more maps.
Looking ahead, there are 6 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, warm and temperatures between 71 and 46 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 54 degrees. We hit a record high of 76 back in 1994. Those days will be here before you know it.
Donald Trump is the GOP favorite and likely to seize the presidential nomination in 2024. But,I am not really convinced that Trump will be the person that ends up in the White House come 2025. I think his legal problems, his declining health and age will keep him from returning to the White House even if the GOP can ride the wave of Joe Biden’s unpopularity back to the White House.
The truth is the GOP has a better chance of winning back the White House if not for Donald Trump. He is unpopular but so is Biden. Yet right now, Trump sucks all of the air out of the Republican primary. Trump may very well win the Republican Primary or many of the early states, but a dramatic change events leads him not to ultimately cinch the nomination. That leaves a potential opening, one that I doubt will be filled by Ron Desantis which many people view as the ultimate political faker, a stunt master of dubious political acts but who has little leadership capacity.
Who would fill this void? I am thinking a dark horse might be out there. And it might be a women, especially should Donald Trump pick somebody like South Dakota Kristi Noem as the Vice Presidential-candidate. A women leading the Republican ticket could help blunt the messaging around abortion and women’s rights, especially a strong women with working-class roots. Being a rancher and having that Western-spirit doesn’t hurt either. If Trump ultimately doesn’t win the presidency, I am sure the candidate he would most likely want to be in the White House is a hand-picked successor.
And even if it’s somebody else, a working-class (at least in appearance) women could be a very strong GOP candidate next year for President. People really don’t like elites or at least educated people who are too condescending and act like they no better then everybody else. Opposition to wokeness is likely key to winning the White House next-cycle, especially for a Republican candidate as most highly-educated people are increasingly becoming Democrats. But many don’t like that as they feel like scientists and educators too often wrap their science and education into their politics, and they want a new voice, who isn’t the traditional white male, but also doesn’t cowtoe to the establishment.
