Good evening! While with the weather of recent, you might not realize only two weeks until summer. 🏊 Overcast and 71 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ Calm wind. The dew point is 53 degrees. Another cool day on today.

With the mild nights, the past few weeks has been one of the warmer ones in recent memories, but the days didn’t get real hot that the month, despite being a little above the historical averages. I guess climate change doesn’t mean it’s always super hot outside.

But at least the weekend is getting closer and with nicer expected I’m heading up to the Adirondack. Not the Potholers this weekend but up to Wells to do some hiking and fishing. I have a campsite in mind where I can just park the truck for the weekend and with the sun have the battery fully recharged by the next day.

Tonight will be partly cloudy ☁, with a low of 56 degrees at 5am. Two degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 56 at 7pm. South wind around 6 mph. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 49 degrees. The record low of 38 occurred back in 1951.

The sun will set at 8:31 pm with dusk around 9:05 pm, which is 38 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly clear skies and 69 degrees. The dew point will be 56 degrees. There will be a south-southwest breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 13 minutes of daytime, an increase of 53 seconds over yesterday.

Tomorrow will be partly sunny 🌞 , with a high of 79 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 56 at 9am. Sunny but not too humid, Calm wind becoming northwest 5 to 8 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 80 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 2011.

My Christmas Cactus in the office has gotten too wet from over-watering and is starting to have root die off. 🌿 I am thinking I will bring the plant home tonight and get some potting soil and re-pot it. The root die off hasn’t killed off all the plant, but the soil is still much too wet, and it’s going to die if I don’t take drastic steps to save it. I know at least one of the parts of the plant is still healthy, so I think I can at least save that. The stupid aluminum foil kind of trapped the water in the bottom of the container, and after tossing some of the leaves in the bottom of the plant container, things got really soggy. I’ll run to the store tonight and re-pot it later on.

Yesterday was Dairy Day at the Legislative Office Building, 🐮 I got my share of free ice cream, yogurt and milk. Hard to complain about it, I was able to get another free lunch. Between various events at work, I’ve done well this past week scoring free lunches. 🍦🍰😋 Out of this four day week, so far I think I’ve only needed to pack two lunches. Always fun to learn a little more agriculture and get some free food. Monday was the Mulberry Street Fair, where they featured Italian Food. I have to admit the Italian is a little easier on the stomach then all that dairy stuff though. Besides the free food, it’s been a busy week at work, although most nights I’ve gotten home early enough to have dinner then go down for a walk to the park.

So I bought a Kill-a-Watt meter so I can start figuring how much power my various electronics projects are actually consuming from the power grid.📉 Before I had a ballpark idea from using a meter and reading spec sheets on the low voltage side but that doesn’t consider power supply losses. The meter can be set to your power rate and gives you daily, monthly, and yearly cost projections for any 120 volt load up to 15 amps.🔌 It also tells you a lot of interesting information like real-time consumption in wattage down to the tenth of a watt, power factor and apparent power. Power factor isn’t something you are billed on but it does increase load and emissions from generators if not balanced out by inductive or capacitive loads.

I am going to start recording all of the 120 volt appliances and devices in my apartment and create a spreadsheet to better understand how I am using electricity. 🔢 This way I can figure out ways to save power. While I can’t meter the electric stove and water heater (and maybe the gas furnace), I should be able to do everything else that plugs into the wall including the refrigerator over time. I am kind of curious and are looking for ways to reduce my power bill. While I doubt I will ever be able to find $25 in savings over the year in power to fully pay back the $25 meter (I got the slightly more expensive 4460 model that automatically estimates cost), the information and knowledge gained will be worth it. I held off buying it for quite a while, but I think it will pay off in many ways and I can use it for years to come — including monitoring my power use off the inverter while camping.

This weekend I am thinking about heading up north I guess, because they will have the most sun up there.⛺ I was thinking about the Potholers and maybe Little Falls but I want to wait until it’s a little hotter out. Plus I’m just getting tired of spending so much time driving back and forth and dealing with the ropes of the kayak. With the solar panel I like being able to parked and call my location home for the weekend.🐜 I was a bit concerned about the black flies in the Adirondacks compared to going to Schoharie County but I don’t think the weather will be as nice further south as it will be up north. As long as I’m moving and apply DEET and maybe keep the fan blowing, black flies will be manageable and they will disappear after dark. I kind of wanted to do the Gas Up festival this weekend but maybe next. I want to camp and fish but not in the rain or cloudy skies.

On this day in 1965, the Supreme Court of the United States hands down its decision in Griswold v. Connecticut,💑 effectively legalizing the use of contraception by married couples. Connecticut long was one of the most socially conservative states in the northeastern US but things changed during the 1960s and 1970s. It’s kind of hard to imagine that it was a crime to talk about Birth Control in many states, only 50 odd years ago. I guess every state has draconian laws that good meaning legislatures ram down people’s throats.

In four weeks on July 5 the sun will be setting at 8:36 pm,🌄 which is 4 minutes and 51 seconds later then today. In 2017 on that day, we had shallow fog, patches of fog, mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 84 and 57 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 82 and 61 degrees. The record high of 99 degrees was set back in 1919.

Looking ahead, Summer is in two weeks 😎, Day After Election Day 🛀 is in 5 months and Thanksgiving 🦃 is in 24 weeks.