September 1, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Cloudy and 60 degrees at the Perkins Clearing. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 53 degrees. A few sprinkles here and there but no heavy rain yet. Kind of a dark and breezy nih in the woods. 💨The skies will clear Tuesday around 8 am.

A very brief rain shower ☔ made me take down the hammock and grab the rain coat but as quick as it came it stopped. I sat by the fire 🔥 for a while but decided to hang up my hammock after I leaned over and my chair snapped. I’m not surprised 😲, I knew it was about to break. I usually only get about a year out of those camp chairs unfortunately. I’ll leave the old one at Walmart for landfill disposal and pick up a new one the next time I’m there.

The wind 🍃 caught one of the candles on the ground on fire 🔥 and proceeded to start a minor grass fire. 🌾 I was able to stomp it out but I had no idea how combustible the grass was up here.

I fully expect in a few hours maybe less it will start to pour. 💦 But I have everything put away that shouldn’t get wet or would otherwise require drying when I got home. It may very well be a quite wet night but it’s been a good long weekend up north and this campsite is well drained so I expect no flooding here at camp. Probably leave fairly early tomorrow and drive home in the rain and get unpacked. 🏡 Not a big deal. Probably next weekend I’ll stay in town. The following week I’m heading down to New York for work so it will be nice to have a weekend just at home.

Tonight will have showers likely, then showers and possibly a thunderstorm after midnight. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds and heavy rain. 🌧 Low of 56 degrees at 4am. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 6th. Maximum dew point of 56 at 12am. 🏖️ South wind around 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It was humid. It got down to 66 degrees. The record low of 38 occurred back in 2017.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent Moon 🌒 with 19% illuminated. The moon will rise at 10:05 am. The First Quarter Moon is on Wednesday night with a chance of showers then partly cloudy skies. The Harvest Moon 🌝 is on Friday, September 13th. The sun will rise at 6:22 am with the first light at 5:52 am, which is one minute and 7 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 10 hours and 50 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over last night.

Labor Day will have showers and possibly a thunderstorm, mainly before 4pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4pm. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds and heavy rain. 🌧 High of 66 degrees at 3pm. 11 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 30th. Maximum dew point of 60 at 1pm. 🏖️ South wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 83 degrees. The record high of 100 was set in 1953.

Today was kind of a lazy day. I reolacd the other burner in the camp stove and reglued the knob that had come loose and it seems like both burners are working good in the stove. ♨ With colder weather ahead I plan to be doing more cooking. I did go for a brief walk but I didn’t hear much squirrel activity I think due to the unstable weather. So it was spaghetti 🍝 and meatballs for dinner. At least it seems like both burners are working well on the camp stove. The bulk of the day was spent reading 📖 a book in my hammock about the mission creep of the defense department. As defense increasingly becomes the only department that politicians want to fund, its mission keeps expanding. 💣

This upcoming week I want to hook up the low voltage disconnect reset button again 🔘in case I ever need to reset the power while camping on these longer nights. Doesn’t happen raglan anymore but I hate to be plunged into darkness without an easy way to restore power to the truck cap.

In four weeks on September 29 the sun will be setting at 6:41 pm,🌄 which is 50 minutes and 47 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had mostly sunny, patches of fog and temperatures between 68 and 47 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 67 and 46 degrees. The record high of 86 degrees was set back in 1921.

Looking ahead, Autumn 🍂 is in 3 weeks, October 🛥 is a month away and Average High is 60 🍂 is in 6 weeks.

Goldrod

September 1, 2019 Morning

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Good morning! Happy September! 🎃 It’s officially metrological autumn. Three weeks to Autumn Equinox🍂. Mostly cloudy and 56 degrees at the Perkins Clearing. ☁ There is a southeast breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 46 degrees.

Laying back in the hammock, looking at the clouds. I’m still chewing over going for a hike at Watch Hill. 🚶 It’s a nice hike but it’s a bit of a trip. north from here. I kind of just want to hang out at camp and read today and maybe have a fire 🔥 before the rain comes tonight. I don’t want to go out hiking and get caught in a shower 🚿 although that doesn’t seem likely until late here in the Adirondacks. It’s not a super long hike, so I could decide after lunch.

Today will be partly cloudy ⛅, with a high of 68 degrees at 3pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 25th. Maximum dew point of 49 at 6pm. South wind 5 to 8 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 79 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1953.

The sun will set at 7:32 pm with dusk around 8:02 pm, which is one minute and 45 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 65 degrees. The dew point will be 49 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 10 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have showers likely, then occasional showers and possibly a thunderstorm after midnight. 🌧 Low of 55 degrees at 5am. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 6th. Maximum dew point of 55 at 12am. 🏖️ South wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It was humid. It got down to 66 degrees. The record low of 38 occurred back in 2017.

On this day in 1985, a joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the Titanic. 🚢 Don’t cry for me Argentina, the truth is that I never left you. 🎶 Okay, wrong sound track. That said, I have very little interest in being on a cruise. I just like being out in the wilderness and making my own rules. 🌲

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Autumn 🍂 when the sun will be setting at 6:54 pm with dusk at 7:23 pm. On that day in 2018, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 71 and 51 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 70 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1895.

Quaker Lake

It’s raining plastic!

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It’s raining plastic!

It’s in our oceans and streams, it’s in our air and water. Plastic is everywhere.

Plastic is everywhere because it’s a co-product of fossil fuel production. Plastic exists because we use oil and gas to power urban civilization, it’s a product that exists because of the other – the more fossil energy we produce the more plastic we produce. Fracking, which has lowered the price of gas and made a bumper crop of plastic. New plastics plants are going to mean even more plastic will be produced in the coming years.

Plastic is a wonderful and nasty substance at the same time. It’s cheap, it’s durable and is provides many functions with minimal material. Compared to glass or metal its remarkably lightweight, saving fuel in its transport and limiting space needed for its disposal. Plastic resists biodegradation but for the most part is combustible. Without heat and fire though, it’s long chains of carbon stay together, breaking down into smaller and smaller pieces in the environment.

Ask any country boy with burn barrel, and they’ll tell you plastic burns but some of it can sure be noxious and smells really bad. A hotter fire helps break the chains down to carbon dioxide and water but there are still often nasty chemicals like lead and cadmium used to color and soften the plastic. Chemicals that might be temporarily detained in a landfill but will eventually leach out into the water and the environment. The amounts of lead, cadmium and other metals might be low in any specific plastic but put together, over the years in a mass burn incinerator or landfill and they add up. All landfills ultimately leak to boot.

That said, chances are a discarded glass bottle or tin can is going to last a lot longer in the environment than a plastic bottle. The combustible nature of plastic does mean it can break down in the environment with fire – such as wildfire, a burn barrel or pit, a campfire. So less of it sticks around in the woods. Even the remaining toxic compounds are absorbed and broken down into the environment eventually. The same can’t be said about broken glass bottles or cans in the farm dump.

Plastics can be recycled or combusted for energy but more needs to be done to make them less toxic and more standardized for recycling. More needs to be done to encourage recycling and consideration of biodegradable alternatives when practical. But compared to the cans and glass they often replace, in many ways plastic is vastly superior.