Good evening! Partly cloudy and 20 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌃 There is a south breeze at 15 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 6. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ Cold but reasonable. ️Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 9 am. 🌡️

Cold evening but not that bad. 🌃 It is reasonable for this time of year. Tomorrow is going to be pretty mild. Busy day today with Pine Bush things and the Reszin Adam’s documentary but at least was decent if cold. Didn’t get a lot of video 📹 of Rezin talking but some good b roll 📼 and a few discussions. The Pine Bush meeting was good 🌲🌲🌲as was lunch at Yonder Farms. 🍏 Always like the cookies 🍪 and sweets there. They are making good progress on fighting the Crossgates Maul development but they’re is much more to do.

I got a few hours put hiking and even climbed to the top of the long closed Greater Albany Landfill 🗻 to watch the sunset. I haven’t been up there in years. Eventually thought the Pine Bush commission is planning a trail over the landfill which will have great views of the Pine Bush Preserve and surrounding areas.🌄 It will be fascinating to see how things look when they plant Pine Bush grasses and maybe even Lupine on the landfill once it’s fully closed in a few years. Technically that area is off limits right tbut it’s not posted and it was five o’clock on a Saturday evening and nobody was at the landfill. 🚮All things said and done the landfill isn’t that big of a deal compared to something like the acres of parking 🅿 at Crossgates but still when I own my own land, I’ll probably use a burn barrel or maybe better yet a forced air homemade incinerator 🔥 so I only have to go to the recycling center ♻ less than once a year with a bag of cans and glass – which nowadays is less and less of the trash with plastics taking over. New formulations of PET have all but completely replaced glass 🍶 for everything but a few things like wine 🍷 and I don’t drink wine. That said, worrying much about landfills nowadays seems silly when they are proposing 10,000 acre solar farms everywhere. ⚡

I bought a four pound bag of broccoli and two pounds of frozen 🌽 so I should be good on vegetables for a while. Probably will go shopping on Tuesday night after work I’m thinking now as it’s going to wash the salt off the roads 🚗 with the rain and I am probably good for groceries in the meantime. I really try to minimize 🚫 the amount of driving I do especially in the winter. It’s kind of nice to stay home and save for a better tomorrow, especially with road trip and camping season not that far off. ⛺

Tonight will have a chance of snow showers, mainly between 1am and 4am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 19 degrees at 10pm. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 21st. Maximum wind chill around 6 at 9pm; South wind 13 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2019, we had light rain in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 22 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1943.

Tonight will have a Waining Crescent 🌘 Moon with 49% illuminated. The Worm 🐛 Moon is on Monday, March 2. The darkest hour is at 12:11 am, followed by dawn at 6:25 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:54 am in the east-southeast (107°) and last for 3 minutes and 2 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 23 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:34 am with sun in the east-southeast (114°). Tonight will have 13 hours and 24 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 42 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 41 degrees at 3pm. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 7th. South wind 5 to 9 mph becoming light in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 34 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 2006. 17.3 inches of snow fell back in 1958.❄

This evening when I got home I got a $60 check from my dental insurance company saying that my dentist is out of network. 😷 I know I should be happy when they sent a check. Same dental hygienist and dental insurance, so I’m not sure the issue. Maybe a different dentist at the same office, they’re in and out in five minutes. Dentist hasn’t sent me a bill yet. 📄 I am hoping that I don’t get billed for the $177 that they billed the insurance for – there normally is no copay for normal cleanings. When I get the bill I’ll call 📞 and see if they will give me a better rate for paying in cash as I normally don’t pay with my insurance and it’s the same insurance policy I had with my new job as the old. An I will probably have to find a new dentist. The only other thing I can think of is maybe I visited the dentist one week short of six months ago – my insurance pays for twice a year cleanings but I’m not sure if they count days or two services per calendar year. Regardless! Frustrating 😤 though for somebody who is always trying to save money 💵 and run a tight budget.

Continuing to read Wiring Simplified by HP Ritcher et al. 🔌 While I’m not planning on any wiring projects in the near future, it’s a good skill to become more knowledgeable about and library books are free to read 📖. I want to be more knowledgeable about wiring and safety when I own my own land, as even if my house is off grid I’ll probably want some lights and wiring and off grid power systems are hardly maintenance free. Some of endless stuff about the code requiring outlets every so many feet in a kitchen seem kind of silly but on the other hand using robust equipment that is UL rated and safely installed, not drawing too much current over the wires is a big thing. ⚡ Arc fault sensors and GFIs have only become a bigger deal in the code lately, for good reason. Looking forward to the chapter about barnyard wiring 🐮 as barns have unique electrical challenges and safe wiring in barns is important with hay, water, rats 🐀 and livestock 🐮 chewing away at wires. The more I learn today the less to learn from scratch in the future. 🎓

In four weeks on March 14 the sun will be setting in the west (268°) at 7:01 pm (Daylight Savings Time),🌄 which is one hour, 34 minutes and 34 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had mostly cloudy, mild temperatures between 59 and 39 degrees. I definitely could use a day that warm again. Typically, you have temperatures between 43 and 25 degrees. The record high of 75 degrees was set back in 1946.

Looking ahead, Ides of March ✝ is a month away, Average High is 50 🌸 is in 6 weeks, Tax Day 💰 is in 2 months, Average High is 60 🌼 is in 9 weeks, Average High is 70 🐮 is in 13 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 14 weeks, Last Day of Session 🏛 is in 18 weeks and Summer ️⛱️ is in 18 weeks.

🇺🇸🦅Only 96 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!🦅🇺🇸