Good Morning! A Gray and Cloudy Morning. Everyday can’t be a beautiful and sunny day. It’s back to work, after a much too short weekend. Went down to Burnt Rossman State Forest on Saturday, then down to the Western Catskills on Sunday. The leaves are pretty close to peak up there – the warmer Schoharie Valley was quite green, but the opposite was true as you climbed in elevation to the hills and mountains around.

I honestly can not remember a fall weekend as nice as this past weekend. Warm but colorful. All week is supposed to be quite warm, but a little more seasonable with highs in the mid-70s. Possible rain on Tuesday, but should clear out for the second half of the week. While we’ve had enough rain this summer to prevent drought conditions in the short-run, but it we are going to some more rain before long.

Spent some time looking around for my face trimmer as I was getting kind of shaggy, and while I found it in my truck, it made me late for the bus this morning, so I ended up taking the later bus downtown. I probably overslept a bit. Mondays can be tough but it’s fine, I usually end up staying late at work, and things don’t really get hopping at work until after 10 AM.

My new Remington 870 shotgun that I bought on Friday is a lot of fun to shoot. I went for the 20-gauge, as they don’t kick much, and I am glad for that. It’s loud, but then again it’s a firearm. I didn’t bring ear protection – as I was shooting it in a fairly open area in a non-range environment – but I sure wish I had, because it left my ears ringing. I think if I want quiet, I will stick to my air rifle.

Looking Glass Pond is closed for reconstruction. Apparently they are re-dredging the pond as it got silted up from Hurricane Irene, and the temporary repairs to the dam that were in place this springtime, where just temporary. I ended up fishing at Utsaythana Lake in Stamford, which is darn shallow. It also was pretty hot sitting out in the sun fishing there. Didn’t catch anything either, but it’s not like I spent hours there.