April 16, 2016 Night

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With the moon just a little past its highest location with a million stars in the sky, it is 50 degrees in Delmar. Enjoying some Corona out back listening to some music on an old set of ear buds because I managed to lose them between the dock I was fishing on earlier this evening.

In was pretty quiet on the dock this evening on the Hudson River although I kept getting hits on my line. I pulled in a half dozen Pumpkinseed Fish and tossed them back in. Caught something bigger but my headphones got caught in the fishing line and I lost him (lol?) . Very placid on the water tonight but there were a lot of people fishing down there.

It was nice at the Elm Ave Town Park earlier in the afternoon. Besides playing on my laptop down there, I spent like am hour reading down there. I am blessed that I can walk to so many great places from home and take the bus to work every day. Now that it’s finally warming up, I expect to spend a lot more evenings down at the park with a book or on the Internet.

Despite the warmer weather conditions, the evenings can still get quite chilly. Even with a long sleeve shirt, I’m not exactly feeling warm out back. It was cool on the dock after dark too. I guess I can’t be in too much of a rush for summer, as it goes by too quickly. Today, four months from now, will be opening day for the Altamont Fair. At that point, we will have reached the closing days of summer. I was looking at a Facebook friend’s photos from the Potholers, thinking how I can’t wait to get up there. Summer is delightful. The road to Powley Place doesn’t open until late May or early June but you can drive almost all the way to the Potholers before the gate.

Not heard much from the spring peepers tonight although I just heard them briefly chirp. Must be too cold for them. The low tonight is 37 degrees which still is a degree below normal. While we’ve seen warmer days recently, the nights have remained remarkably cold. A month from now, the average low will be 47 degrees meaning that most evenings will be in the mid to upper 50s. Comfortable but with lots of black flies.

Tomorrow is going to be sunny and around 70 degrees. Nice weather, 11 degrees above normal but 22 degrees below the record set in 2002. Monday will be 73 degrees. The normal high temperature one month from now is about 70. Will be warm or at least mild most of next week but some modestly chilly nights but no frost anticipated in the city through next week. Showers possible on Tuesday and next weekend may be cloudy or rainy. I may also stay in town next weekend to prepare for my road trip.

Make sure to remain hydrated and be extremely careful with fire. Humidity will remain low all weekend and with that breeze and lack of greenest in the woods means a fire risk. The humidity for most of the afternoon was under 20% producing dew points in the teens. In contrast in the summer we sometimes have dew points in the low to mid 70s on those hot and sticky days. Even exceptionally clear summer days don’t often have dew points below the mid 50s.

Tonight’s Waxing Gibbons Moon is 2/3rd full as we head towards the full moon early in the morning of Earth Day on next Friday. Moon sets around 4 AM with sunrise at 6:08 AM. First light is now well before six, starting at 5:38 AM.

It’s getting late I’m tired. Sleep well…

April 16, 2016 Afternoon

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Happy Saturday Afternoon! A nice one for sure, about 64 degrees with a northwest 7 mph. Feels pretty nice but it is dry outside, with a dew point of only 19 degrees and 18% relative humidity. While it’s been relatively wet earlier in the week, it is still kind of fire weather, although things have started to green up a bit in the city. Probably not a good day for backcountry camping, especially if I wasn’t planning on staying in a developed campsite. I could clear the leaves away from the fire pit I dug out, but that’s still always a bit scary.

Sunset this evening is in about 3 1/2 hours at 7:39 PM with darkness at 8:06 PM. Right now I’m down at the town park playing on my laptop, but later on I am probably going to go down to the river and do some fishing, then pick up some groceries. I also need to get some gas as my truck is pretty much empty. Then again, the last time I put gas in my truck was Good Friday, and only put in $30 into the tank, as I haven’t made many trips lately.

The 40 Karner Road Clean-Up Went Pretty Well. There was a ton of junk in that ravine, they only really got started despite having like 40 people working on hauling out junk — mostly scrap metal but some bottles too. I swear the pile of scrap metal reached 10 feet high and looked like a bonfire pile of wood, like you might see for a bonfire on a farm. Whoever dumped the junk back there, must have burned it up pretty well, as there was mostly just scrap metal, glass, and some tires — some partially burnt tires. Bet that smelled well. Those must have been some wild days in the bad old days of the Pine Bush in 1970s, although that area suffered from some pretty bad dumping before the area was built up in the mid-1970s. I’m just glad the parcel is forever preserved, and they are making process at cleaning it up. It will be nice once all the trash is gone, and the landscape is restored to natural status.

So I’m looking at the Camp Chef Everett stove now. I like how it’s small like the Coleman propane stoves that are common but puts out a lot of heat and adjusts down. I do have some concerns about the negative reviews and the “cheapness” of the cover. I’m still thinking though about stoves. It just has to be reliable, and easy to use, as I had fiddling with the white gas stoves on a cold morning, and knocking over a nearly done pot of coffee. I want to have a propane stove I can hook up for the 5-day trip I’m taking that last week of April.

April 16, 2016 Morning

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Blue skies and 37 degrees this morning. With calm winds feels much warmer. 66 degrees and sunny later.

After breakfast, I’m off to the Albany Pine Bush 40 Karner Clean-up.

Then I’m going to continue looking at camp stoves. I want to get a good propane stove that is stable, puts out a lot of heat, works trouble free and can be set to a very low temperature for simmering. I also want piezoelectric start so I don’t have to fiddle with matches when making coffee in the morning. The white gas stoves I have are portable but tend to be unstable, sometimes troublesome, and either put out too much heat or two little. Portability isn’t a big thing for me as I mostly roadside camp,

Going fishing later this evening. Maybe just down to the Hudson River to kill time. Although I’d catch stuff to keep I’d I went to Lawson Lake. But that’s out of the way for going to the store and no big barges to watch. When it gets dark out around 8:08 pm, buy groceries on the way home.

Should be a nice day.