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.
One of the hardest things I’ve been thinking about is what it will be like once I leave behind the life I’ve lived over the past decade and a half since I graduated college. One of regular trips in the wilderness, spent camping under the stars, biking and swimming in the Potholers. Big Red and the many trips I’ve taken with him over the years. Trips to West Virginia, Pennsylvania, the Finger Lakes. I knew that some day those days would be coming to an end, and it really started to set in last year. I’m not only bored with travel, I’m ready for some persistence in life, not three night adventures that serve as escape from reality.
Escapism in life has its thrills. I mean that’s why people take vacations. But when you base your life around escape, is it really a life? If things are so awful in your every day situation that you’re only focus is maximizing investments and retirement funding towards a better tomorrow, is that really a way to live a life? When all you really care about is the next time you can get out of town, as you hate your dumpy apartment and being stuck in the city. I want to live a life based on reality rather than escape.
The truth is camping isn’t as much fun as it is once was since I quit the hard drinking and the unhealthy eating of junk food like hot dogs and cookies. Since I’ve run out of new places to explore and new things to do. The sameness of things has proven incredibly boring as they aren’t making much new state land. Things don’t change that much as you go to the same state forest over and over. The roads remain the same, even if they are more built up now with more solar facilities and housing built up along the shoulders.
If you think of the average high subtracted by the average high for the year in Albany as a sine wave, the phase goes positive around April 17th. ☀
The earth acts as a giant inductor for solar radiation as it takes time for the earth to heat or cold, which means that the average high temperature in Albany is 22 days out of sync with the position of the sun, making the high temperature departure curve is roughly 21.6 degrees out of phase from the sun although that’s not quite accurate around autumn as the sine wave that measures temperature departure is flatter than the position of the sun, because of the inductance of the earth and because not all heat from the earth is radiated back to space.
I have to work and I don’t get out every day. Many times things haven’t changed enough to be worth photographing a second time, especially if earlier shots really are good photos. That said, I still want to share my memories with you even if some of them are quite old.
First snowstorm of the week, I guess. Little one this evening, maybe an inch or two of snow and freezing rain and ice. That could improve conditions for riding on the Rail Trail, though I think I’m done riding to work for now.
The snow and I was was really too deep yesterday for good riding on the Rail Trail. 🚴 But despite my best sense getting to me, I did it both ways. The snow was so deep that it was a complete slog to go through it, on the way back up through the gorge I got stuck multiple times, and ended up pushing my bike most of the way from the bridge over the Norman’s Kill to above Rockefeller Road due to snow being too deep on the way home. 🦵 It was 6:30 PM by the time I got home, it was pitch black 🌃 by the time I reached Delmar and was back on the roads. I avoided using the light on my bike on the trail, lest I draw attention that I was riding after dark on the trail, as you’re not supposed to do that. I didn’t really expect to be pushing my bike home in the dark in the snow ☃️ though I should have, as it was bad going in and somehow I expect it not to be so bad going up hill, due to non-existent snow melt and packing of hikers.
It was kind of gross, I was completely covered in sweat 😅 and I was a half hour late to work, even though I left the normal time when I ride or maybe a minute or two later because it was such bad riding conditions on the trail. It literally meant I was bumping along at 3 or 4 miles per hour versus the 15 mph or so I do flying down the hill when the pavement is bare. There had to been close to a foot of snow on the trail. It was so hard peddling through all that snow.🐢 I get it, I’m the director, and nobody but myself to yell at for being late, though if I was much later I would have let staff know and maybe the executive directors lest they needed some kind of rush data job. 🖥️
Truth is I really hate winter. 🌨️ Not that I particularly hate the season, but it’s tough in the cold. I had so hoped to get out and have that much needed campfire this weekend, 🔥 burn up some of the paper and burnables, giggle with some grass and listen to the music. I wish had that little cabin with the wood stove, so I could be warm, and not be stuck in my 50 degree drafty apartment that I refuse to turn the heat up on 🏠 because I want to save whatever pennies 🪙 I have for that future place in woods where I can not only heat with woods but have bonfires whenever I want to get rid of all that crap. But we are getting a foot of snow this weekend. 🌬️ Sucks.
Just got to make it through two weeks more of February. ❄️ It really is the cruelest month, as I was reminded slogging through the snow yesterday on my mountain bike. I really should have taken the road in if I was going to bike and bus back home. I mean the have the racks on the bus for a reason. 🚍 But I hate riding the bus, even though today I’m back on the bus. I guess it’s depression, though what you can say, it’s all in your mind. All I know, is I just got to push through this month, when I can be back up in the woods, doing the fun stuff. And riding back and forth to work, not in the deep snow. That was so awful yesterday, not only was I dripped in sweat at work, when I got home I was also soaked from all the sweat. 🏕️ I so wish I could get up to the woods this weekend 🎄 and have that fire but it’s going to snow so much this weekend on top of the foot plus they already have in Rennselaerville. I get that the road is plowed but it would be a lot of digging out then with another foot coming, it would be a challenge to camp even with a roaring fire. 🔥 It’s though.
Of course, because of the articles I clicked on social media, 🖱️ all these days I see is ads about schizophrenia, depression and mental health. 🤪 We have pills for you! We have support! Call 988 for help now! 💊 They’ll even tell you how to live your life, how wonderful life in suburbs is in your plastic house heated with fracked natural gas and a TV set in a every room. Truth is I’ve been interested in mental health, because I want to live a healthy life, and because so many of those issues are intertwined with smoking pot, which I like thinking about much more then doing. It’s good to look back fondly on giggling next to a waterfall last year’s. 🧠 Psychosis and paranoia are always risks of cannabis, though I think a bigger risk is eating too many apples and sweet corn while laughing my head off floating down the East Canada Creek singing along with the Dire Wolf. Yet, I always wonder why I feel the way I do. Why do I value certain things, and don’t care about others? How can I maximize my relationships with others in mutually beneficial ways? How can I be a better person. Plus, I know if I’m better at working people and connections I can make more money 💰 which puts me closer to owning my own land, with that wood stove and burn barrel out back. 🔥 And goats 🐐 and hogs. 🐽 Four wheeler, big black scary rifles and anything else I want in a little town that smells like silage. 🐄
I’ve been avoiding it but I need to talk to the head programmer about deleting some of data I’ve created at work, 💾 as I realized I’ve gotten a bit carried away. While it was at first just an issue of storage and capacity, I realized some of sets I linked and tagged will never get used and it was just a complete waste of disk space and resources. I would delete it myself but it’s a couple of million records, and it would be better if database administrator did such a big delete without the journaling being turned on, to avoid excess journal entries being done. 🎩 I’ll have to do that today, hat in hand. Yesterday, I had an excuse, I was kind of busy getting in late and then I was completely disgusting 🤢 as a sweaty pig 🐖 from riding to work.
The other day I was hearing that some people think a gay man,like Pete Buttiegeig might not be able to win the presidency. That might be a concern of the older generation, but there are fewer and fewer of those people left around in this world. Religious conservatives who remain opposed to gay marriage, are already backing whoever the leading Republican will be in 2028, so they aren’t going to back any Democrat that runs. Moreover, gay relationships are so mainstream nowadays, and are hardly the “dirty little secret” of yesteryear. Same-sex marriages today aren’t primarily about what people do in their bedroom, it’s about love and a bonded relationship.
Even with the unusually cold weather we’ve been having, it’s clear that things are getting warmer as the sun angle increases! The sun angle is much stronger at 32.8° compared to less then 24° only a few weeks back in December. It was noticable and helped melt away much of snow we got last night, along with the warmer temperatures. Dusk isn’t until 5:48 PM which on a clear day means much more light in the evening. Spring is coming!
