Good morning! Happy Ground Hog Day 🐻! Like a true Ground Hog Day I decided to walk out to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center 🐸 two days in a row. The rail trail is fine but there is more nature and bathrooms 🚽 at Five Rivers to take a piss. Plus hiking along 443, is always an adventure in its own right. Next Sunday is the Snow Moon. 🌕 Partly cloudy and 33 degrees at the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center. ⛅ There is a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃.

Been feeling a lot better lately 👍 ever since the Lyme Disease symptoms have gone away. They didn’t disappear instantly when I got off the medication 💊 but two or three months out they’re totally gone and I’m enjoying doing a lot more walking. 🚶 The bicycle is fine 🚲 but walking is better for the whole body. 💪

Had some really blue skies and sun ☀ around 8 AM but by the time I started hiking out to Five Rivers for the second time this weekend it started to cloud up. But I like listening 👂 to the birds 🐦 and observing nature. I figure it might not be that nice come this afternoon. I also have some stuff I want to work on at the Bethlehem library before going out to the folks house this afternoon. 👪

Today will have a slight chance of snow before noon, then a chance of rain and snow after 2pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 38 degrees at 1pm. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 26th. Southwest wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 32 degrees. The record high of 53 was set in 1981. 11.9 inches of snow fell back in 2015.❄

I went shopping 🏪 yesterday and washed my truck in the evening 🚘 so I don’t have to do that today. Also got gas for Big Red, ⛽ thirstier than I thought but I haven’t gotten gas in about three weeks. As I said earlier, I do want to get down to the library books later on to do some work on the internet but I guess I can do it at my parents house 🏡 if it looks like it will pour this afternoon.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 30.5° from the due south horizon (-40.4° vs. 6/21). The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:29 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (241°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (248°) starting at 5:07 pm and lasts for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 5:39 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south-southeast (151°) at an altitude of 61° from the horizon, 246,044 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:14 pm. At sunset, look for possible rain showers 🌧 and snow showers 🌨 and temperatures around 35 degrees. Won’t freeze on the road most likely. There will be a southwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 10 hours of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 21 seconds over yesterday.

Yesterday I was in the Five Rivers discovery center, studying the bird 🐦 name display. All of the birds listed are incredibly common locally and I probably could identify most by memory but I’m not sure if I would be able to do it as part of a quiz show. 💭 I really should study up on bird and plant 🌿 identification.

I didn’t do a blog post last night as I was tired 😴 and there is a bug in the code that is keeping me from using the blog template at the first and last quarter 🌗 moon. I upgraded to a new library for moon phase predictions after the Navy stopped posting their moon tables as part of their website redesign. Plus I got reading 📖 that book about the loosing presidential candidates and how their losses changed America.

Tonight will snow likely, mainly before 11pm. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a low of 30 degrees at 9pm. 15 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 27th. South wind 5 to 8 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. I think it’s going to mostly be a nuisance snow if even that. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 31 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1955.

🌹🌻🌼Only 46 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼

That’s roughly six weeks away but the Ground Hog 🐻 is calling for an early spring. I have my doubts, I bet it will get cold by late February or early March but things could change. Varmints have a mixed record on predicting the weather, they’re much better at breaking tractor axles 🚜 and legs. Kind of like the mafia but more agricultural, digging holes in farm fields and eating crops. 🌽

Been continuing to research picnic table tents 🎪 to use during Memorial Day Weekend and my summer camping trip. While I hate to acquire more gear to store, maintain and ultimately dispose of – it would be nice to have a good sheltered place from the black flies in the spring and rainy days in the summer. Or even for camping in a site with limited shade and trees to hang stuff from. Where I can sit with a book or cook sheltered. 💭

As previously noted, next Sunday is the Snow Moon 🌕 when the sun will be setting at 5:18 pm with dusk at 5:48 pm. On that day in 2019, we had mostly sunny, snow showers and temperatures between 31 and 20 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 57 back in 1925.