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.
Sunny and not too cold for mid April but so far no real warm weather. Those days most certainly though are coming.
Good morning! What day is it? Hump Day, of course. But as they say, the nice weather is not expected to last. Mostly sunny and 43 degrees in Delmar. ☀ There is a north breeze at 7 mph. 🍃
French toast this morning 🥖, slicing off some slices of the homemade bread I made last week that was getting stale. Not bad topped with strawberries 🍓 and honey 🍯. Dinner last night was fried zucchini 🍆 with sweet onions 🧅, riding home last night I picked up some more.
When I was cooking this morning 🍳I apparently startled a mouse 🐁 which proceeded to jump from the counter to the hot stove and then across the room in the air. Apparently the electric mouse zappers didn’t get him as I ignored the mouse captured blinking light on it last night. 🪤A mouse trap don’t work if it’s full.
Today will have increasing clouds ☀ 👉 ☁, with a high of 64 degrees at 3pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 25th. North wind 5 to 7 mph becoming calm in the morning. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 64 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 2002. 0.3 inches of snow fell back in 1965.❄
Should be a beautiful day for riding in 🚲 but depending if it rains ☔ I might have to bus 🚍 it home. So be it. Still good exercise. 💪🏻 Yesterday it was nice reading 📖 down at the park. 🏞
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:55 pm with sun having an altitude of 58.1° from the due south horizon (-12.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:02 pm with the sun in the west (279°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (286°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:40 pm after setting for 3 minutes with dusk around 8:09 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south-southeast (155°) at an altitude of 64° from the horizon, 250,209 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:45 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 59 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 9 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 33 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 43 seconds over yesterday.
They’re continuing to gut the apartment next door and tore up part of the slab. 👷Quitethe construction 🚧 project, they’re must have been a lot wrong with the physical plant of the unit next door, probably this explains why my apartment is always wet and the bathtub never properly drains. 🚿 Or the mold issues. Who knows if the fixes next door will also improve my unit as a side effect. I can hope.
Tonight will have showers likely, mainly after 10pm. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 45 degrees at 6am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 5th. Southeast wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2023, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 38 degrees. The record low of 21 occurred back in 1948.
Cool this weekend with temperatures running 6 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. 😃 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 58. Breezy. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 55. Typical average high for the weekend is 62 degrees.
Still not sure what my weekend plans are going to be 🌲 in part because it’s going to rain on Friday evening and I’m thinking in a few weeks it would be nice to go out to Schoharie County and do a spring time ride along the Catskill Scenic Trail rather than do it this weekend. I do want to camp ⛺ maybe just a quick overnight but it’s probably too cold to do a hammock camp just up in the woods. I thought about heading back to the Adirondacks but it’s a pretty good trip to just head there for the weekend.
Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until May 🕊 when the sun will be setting at 7:57 pm with dusk at 8:26 pm. On that day in 2023, we had rain and temperatures between 59 and 45 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 66 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 2001.
Make Your Maps in QGIS but use R and Tidycensus to Generate Census Shapefiles 🗺
Why choose when you can have it all? Seriously, QGIS makes it easy to move labels as you like and do the styling of the Shapefile or GeoPackage you generate in R with tidycensus and sf.
With the above R code, it will generate a GeoPackage (use extension .gpkg) or Shapefile (use extension .shp) you can use to make your map in QGIS. Then in QGIS if you want to simplify the output, you can use a geometry generator in the styles:
simplify($geometry,0.003)
Or you can specify the simplification in the R script when you run get_acs(), as it is a wrapper around the tigris package:
Two years ago, my first camping trip of the year was along the East Branch of the Sacanadaga River at an old house site that has been long used as a designated campsite. Even camping in late April, there was still a fair bit of ice and residual snow left.
The first night it drizzled a bit, so I bought a tarp and strung it up. Later in the evening it tapered off. I brought some wood and starting fluid, so it got a good fire going quickly, and it wasn’t too bad.
It got nice by morning, and I cooked up a pretty good breakfast on the griddle.
No complaints about the sun after all rain and dampness the previous night.
The first day, I drove over to Garnet Lake.
And did some fishing, without much luck in Mill Creek.
I got back to camp and cooked up some burgers.
The following night I had a nice little fire.
Then retired to my well lit truck cap.
The next day, I hiked back to Auger Falls.
Above the falls, in the flats, the water was quiet, the birds were singing.
Too bad Downtown Albany is blanketed by a thick brown haze of smog. But it was a nice ride in with the sunshine and things greening up. I don’t know if it’s due to a house fire, the asphalt plant or cars and trucks on the highways or just a combination of al those with a good temperature inversion.
Good morning! Sunny and 47 degrees in Albany, NY. 🌞 Calm wind. A bit cool but it’s warming up quickly and going to be another nice day.
Carrot pancakes for breakfast this morning 🥕 with mango. My pancakes are far better then standard fare that most people think of — white pancake mix — type breakfasts. Last night was the usual fried onions and veggies with some soy sauce. 🍲 I wanted a quick dinner, something I could throw together while participating it he Save the Pine Bush dinner.
Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 63 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 22nd. Light west wind becoming northwest 13 to 18 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 78 degrees. The record high of 91 was set in 2012. 5.3 inches of snow fell back in 1983.❄
Tweaked the derailleur on my bike 🚲 so I’m hoping for a smoother commute on into work today. 🧑🔧 I really need to schedule an appointment with my bike mechanic to get my bike derailleur adjusted. I can do some of my own adjustments but by no means am I an expert or a professional.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:55 pm with sun having an altitude of 57.7° from the due south horizon (-13.1° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:01 pm with the sun in the west (279°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (285°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:39 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 59 seconds with dusk around 8:08 pm, which is one minute and 9 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south (178°) at an altitude of 70° from the horizon, 248,336 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:44 pm. At sunset, look for clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 58 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 11 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 30 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over yesterday.
Last night when I got home they were finishing up digging a hole the floor in the unit next to mine. 👷♂️ Apparently while I was at work they were busy with a jack hammer banging through the concrete slab, which at least they didn’t do while I was home but there was still a lot of moving of material for a while as I cooked my dinner, clanking and making noise, but then they stopped around 6:30 PM. Not great for the Save the Pine Bush Zoom, 📹️ although at the same time I was participating in the Zoom, I was also eating dinner. 🍲 What can I say, I was hungry after my bike ride home 🚴♂️ and tired too. After that I went down to the town park to read and walk for a while. It was a pretty nice evening.
Tonight will be clear 🌃, with a low of 34 degrees at 5am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 9th. West wind 5 to 8 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2023, we had partly cloudy skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 49 degrees. The record low of 21 occurred back in 1971.
It ended up working out well on the state taxes. 💵 Despite my mistake on the tax form 📄 the state ultimately took out the proper amount of money. I was happy that worked out. I need to adjust my with holdings up further this year to avoid it happening again.
A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 61. Maximum dew point of 44 at 6am. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 59. Typical average high for the weekend is 62 degrees.
Now I’m definitely thinking about heading out of town 🌲 but where to go is the question. Rensselaerville State Forest is close for just a quick overnight. Or I could do a three day weekend in the Adirondacks. I’ve been considering potentially heading back up to the Vanderwhacker area of the Adirondacks, it’s been a long time since I’ve been up that way. Probably too cold for hammock camping. ⛺
As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until 8 PM Sunset 🌇 when the sun will be setting at 8:03 pm with dusk at 8:33 pm. On that day in 2023, we had mostly cloudy and temperatures between 59 and 45 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 69 degrees. We hit a record high of 92 back in 1930.
I am pretty sure either Donald Trump will be convicted of a felony unless there is a hung jury with his New York criminal case. Whether or not the case is reversed on appeal, it seems likely that one of the leading presidential candidates will be a convicted felon. This means at least in the State of Florida, he won’t be allowed to vote for himself for President unless of course the legislature decides to change law, just for him.
Not that I’m convinced that this is a bad thing. For too long government has been held in too high of regard, the decisions of millions of government bureaucrats viewed as virtuous by default. There has been a reverence for the American government and those who work for it, even though government workers are just humans with as many flaws and bad decisions that are common not only in private business but in the administration of government.
Government, and our country needs to be knocked down a peg. Government workers, the courts, the police should be viewed with a degree of contempt. They should be looked down as a necessary evil, but something that is not virtuous but as servants of people. A leading presidential candidate who is a felon may forever change how we view our country, start a true discussion of the size and scope of government.
Well we know who is going to be living high on the hog today. Not me, but the government certainly will be as $1,600 is transferred from my bank account to the state and feds. I think I did end up overpaying the state due to a mistake on my tax returns, but alas either state tax and finance will catch my mistake or I’ll file an amended return and get like $400 back. With high interest rates and lots of dividends, it was a good year last one, and I ended up making more then I expected so I didn’t deduct enough from my paycheck.
Good morning on this Tax Day! You know how I feel about that. Cranky, especially as I think each year we get a little less and less out of government while it cost more and more, as it eats up more and more resources and demands more growth. 🐉 Fog and 44 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌫️ Calm wind.The skies will clear around 6 am.
Yeah, I do need to adjust my paycheck deductions upwards further 💸 I think this year and I do need to plan on making an appointment to meet with an CPA to decide better ways to manage my taxes going forward, especially if I’m thinking of potentially buying land 🚜 later this year to build a cabin 🛖, that is if I decide to stay in New York. Last night I was actually watching a movie on Kanopy — the free library app for watching documentaries — on a 30-year old that went and built a Tiny Home on wheels. It was an interesting video 📺️ but really not for me. I like the idea of small but I would want something a little more permanent and long lasting, small but not tiny. Maybe modular or maybe stick built, with an actual foundation and complying with building codes for energy and fire safety. 🧯
Today will have patchy dense fog before 8am. Otherwise, partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 60 degrees at 5pm. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 16th. Light northwest wind becoming west 11 to 16 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 84 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 2003. 2.4 inches of snow fell back in 2014.❄
Going to be decent enough to ride to work, 🚴♂️ get some exercise and save on the bus fare. I know I can ride into today and tomorrow, but the second half of the week looks a bit dicey with the forecast. 🌲There is a Save the Pine Bush meeting tonight at 6 PM via the Zoom, but I should be able to ride and be home before then. Might do the meeting while I’m cooking dinner.
Around 7 AM the fire alarm went off again 🧑🚒 — first time that’s happened in a while which is surprising as I have most of my windows open but it’s pretty foggy and humid. I cleaned the smoke detector with canned air the other day which seemed to help somewhat. At least it hasn’t been going off at night. I made sure to open the remainder of the windows in my apartment and it should be good with plenty of fresh air once the fog burns off and things warm up.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:56 pm with sun having an altitude of 57.4° from the due south horizon (-13.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:00 pm with the sun in the west (278°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (285°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:38 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 59 seconds with dusk around 8:07 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south-southwest (211°) at an altitude of 71° from the horizon, 245,994 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:43 pm. At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 54 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 11 mph. Tomorrow will have 13 hours and 30 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over today.
Still having issues with my phone screen acting up. 📲 At some point I really do need to get a new phone and my boots have holes in them 🥾 but with inflation you know you gotta cut corners wherever you can.
Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 39 degrees at 6am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 20th. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming light west. In 2023, we had partly cloudy skies. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 22 occurred back in 1981.
I’d like to get out of town this weekend 🏕️ but it all comes down to the weather and whether or not not the state budget is done. Looks cool and maybe cloudy to start the way. Maybe take a three-day weekend if the state budget is done. Saturday, a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 55. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 52. Monday, mostly sunny, with a high near 59. That’s actually kind of cold for the second half of April, at least by historic standards. Typical average high for the weekend is 62 degrees.
As previously noted, next Monday is Earth Day 🌎 when the sun will be setting at 7:47 pm with dusk at 8:15 pm. On that day in 2023, we had rain showers and temperatures between 68 and 53 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 63 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1985.
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