Today is National Agriculture Day

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Today is National Agriculture Day. 🐮 🚜 🐷

Here is a list of the 20 towns that have most land used for agriculture in the state (based on the 2016 NLCD).

County Town Acres Hay/Pasture Acres Cultivated Total Farmland
St. Lawrence Lisbon town 17,160 11,300 28,460
Seneca Fayette town 2,157 25,908 28,065
Schuyler Hector town 20,397 7,392 27,788
Niagara Royalton town 11,225 15,678 26,903
Ontario Phelps town 3,879 22,075 25,954
Jefferson Clayton town 23,908 1,989 25,898
Jefferson Ellisburg town 7,276 18,052 25,328
Orleans Seneca town 1,337 22,786 24,123
Livingston York town 2,833 20,881 23,714
Jefferson Cape Vincent town 17,207 5,512 22,719
Jefferson Lyme town 19,945 2,251 22,197
Ontario Gorham town 3,210 18,652 21,862
Jefferson Brownville town 20,654 989 21,642
Tompkins Lansing town 9,908 11,549 21,457
St. Lawrence Canton town 17,080 4,322 21,402
Jefferson Orleans town 20,435 870 21,305
Montgomery Minden town 14,737 6,303 21,040
Orleans Barre town 2,097 18,744 20,841
Ontario Canandaigua town 8,514 12,297 20,810
Niagara Wilson town 3,947 16,724 20,671

It’s a lot of fun to look at off-grid properties and hunting camps on the Internet

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It’s a lot of fun to look at off-grid properties and hunting camps on the Internet. I do spend too much time dilly-dallying on my phone, looking at Land and Farm real-estate, as I found Zillow wasn’t exactly a great site for looking for places that aren’t your typical suburbanite development. Hunting camps and cabins, especially without electricity and running water out of the middle of nowhere tend to be quite affordable, especially in less expensive parts of country. Honestly, some of the properties I’ve looked at aren’t really accessable year round, might have restrictions on their use, or are too far from any kind of useful work, but it’s still interesting to explore and dream of the world of tomorrow.

NYS Open GIS Parcel Data

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NYS Open GIS Parcel Data

This webinar will provide data-driven answers to why open access to GIS tax parcels is important in New York State. We will also discuss how the GIS community and the public can advocate in Counties across the State to create more access to standardized, statewide GIS tax parcel data.

I got my COVID-19 Shot today 💉🙋🏻‍♂️ 😷

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I got my COVID-19 Shot today 💉🙋🏻‍♂️ 😷

It’s the beginning of the end of the year that was. I didn’t get it the first week it was available but hearing that a lot of my friends and colleagues were getting vaccinated I thought now was the time. I don’t like needles or doctors but truth be told from the people I know who’ve gotten COVID, two shots in the arm didn’t seem that bad. Didn’t hurt one bit. I was in and out in less then 20 minutes, with like only 5 people in the building to 100 government workers and volunteers to direct you were to go. It wouldn’t even had taken 20 minutes, had not I been required to wait for 15 minutes after getting the shot, although the 15 minutes was entirely on the honor system.

It was only a few weeks ago that to get a COVID shot you had to get up early, make an appointment on a website that kept crashing to get the shot, wait weeks and travel hundreds of miles to a distant clinic. I could have literally had an appointment at this point the next day if I was willing to go in on a Saturday evening but I waited until the following Tuesday during my lunch break. With the fact I am a public employee and work with the public I was eligible for 1B, and while I didn’t want to cut in line, I took the advice of the Skeptics Guide to the Universe and got the shot soon after I was eligible.

A year ago it was a pretty scary time, something nobody was prepared for as the world radically changed. Remote work was a non obvious challenge to me as I didn’t have internet at home. And nobody really knew how things were going to proceed or how long lockdowns would continue. For a while it was really looked on as people leaving their homes as being evil, spreading the virus around their community. I was never that locked down – I went down to the library and Five Rivers to work from my laptop and wasn’t too worried about it going out to remote country where I knew it unlikely that I’d run into anyone else, or if I did I would be well socially distanced. Fortunately, not many people I knew closely died from COVID, but at one time that was a very reasonable fear to have. I did avoid the stores, preferring a quick shop weekly at Aldi’s to going to any kind of big box.

Now I don’t like the waste of a needle, or all the packaging the COVID-vaccine comes in, but at least they are able to get multiple doses out of each vial. And it prevents waste by avoiding myself getting sick, especially with a need for hospitalization. And is sure is convenient, as I could just catch a bus downtown and it was right on the bus line. I kind of wish I had gotten the single dose vaccine, but this was one that was available for me at time I ordered it up.

Most importantly, now it’s really something I can put behind myself. With my first COVID shot, I now have significant immunity to COVID,  and will have full immunity by the start of May after I get my second shot in three weeks. It’s kind of life affirming to know I won’t have to worry about getting COVID-19, or be spreading it around the community. While it will be a few more weeks or maybe months of mask wearing until herd immunity in community is reached, I don’t have to think about getting COVID-19 myself, especially if I return to working back downtown soon and riding the bus daily.

Schoharie County Land Use

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Northend Schoharie County has a lot of hay and pasture lands, while the southern part of the county is more wooded. The Schoharie Valley is famous for its crop lands.