… dot, dot, dot. And then later possibly turn to snow before clearing out. Winter wants to remind us it’s still a thing, even though most of new week will be in the fifties and sixties, with the bite of winter not having much left due to El Nino and climate change.

Good morning! Rain showers are ending, around 36 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a northwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 3 am. ☃️ My windows have been closed all of last night and most of the evening, though the heat has been off but I used the heated blanket.

Kind of an usual Sunday, 😵 up early at 5 AM and showering soon 🛀 and then off to Wally World to get groceries and supplies. 🛒 Nothing to earth shocking. 💣️ I mean, I did set my clocks ahead, so I really got up at 4 AM, but we won’t say that. Then I want to do a drive out to country,  🐄 look at some properties I have been thinking about and explore some back roads, 🛻 and then head out to the folks house fairly early for Sunday dinner. I’d like to get home by 7:30 PM tonight so I can avoid driving after if possible. I don’t mind is so much any more, since I’ve started to eat more carrots 🥕, adjusted my headlights 🔦 and generally are more healthy, but why drive after dark if you can avoid it? Says the boy who is thinking about building an off-grid cabin out in the country, and seriously considering absurdly long commutes in the dark to do it. 🤷‍♂️ I am probably totally nuts, 🤪 letting my mental illness and pyromania 🔥 get the best of me. But just think of the bonfires I could have if I lived out in the country. Or the warmth of the wood stove. I just love burning things. 🧡 🤣

Today will have a chance of rain, mainly before 8am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 45 degrees at 1pm. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 15th. West wind 7 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 44 degrees. The record high of 72 was set in 1977. 5.7 inches of snow fell back in 1964.❄

Last night I baked bread 🍞 and made a big pot of red lentil soup. 🍲 Also I cooked up a acorn squash that I will be enjoying most of this week. The bread is carrot bread with lots of shredded carrots. 🥕 The red lentil soup contains peas, shredded carrots and lots of turmeric and spices. 🧂 I had been cutting back on carrots, as they can be a bit excessive on the fiber side thing, but I saw that had been piling up in the refrigerator, and didn’t want them to go waste and they are healthy. Not as sweet as they are some times, but they do make bread so moist and delicious. Eggs for breakfast today. 🐓 My pantry is getting a bit bare now.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:06 pm with sun having an altitude of 43.5° from the due south horizon (-27.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:19 pm with the sun in the west (259°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (266°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:57 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 55 seconds with dusk around 7:24 pm, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Crescent 🌒 Moon in the west (266°) at an altitude of 2° from the horizon, 226,500 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:58 pm. At sunset, look for snow 🌨 and temperatures around 39 degrees. Breezy, 18 mph breeze ⛅ from the west-northwest with gusts up to 36mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 47 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 54 seconds over today.

I was thinking today marks the four years since the pandemic shit got real. 😷 While at this point wearing muzzles didn’t become standard fare yet, it was the evening when we all got the news that things were shutting down 📂 and that we’d all be working remote for the next year or two. Of course none of that was known, we were promised four or six weeks of isolation, and it wasn’t fun not having Internet at home at first, but I got good working out of ol’ Big Red 🛻 down at the parking lot of public library, 👨‍💻 at least on warm and sunny days, ☀️ at least those days it wasn’t so hot. And in many cases, working remote from the Adirondacks was a lot of fun, camping 🏕 and hanging out at the Speculator Library doing Zooms when the internet wasn’t flakey due too many people being on it. Time goes by so fast, I mean it’s was only a year ago when using the word shit became something you could use in a country song and polite conversation. 💩 It’s good, we all do it, and makes crops grow. 🌱 And I do it a lot with all the fiber I eat. 🥦

Tonight will have a chance of snow showers, mainly between 7pm and 5am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 32 degrees at 4am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 2nd. Breezy, with a northwest wind 15 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 34 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. In 2023, we had light rain in the evening, which became light snow by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 28 degrees. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1939.

Getting up at 5 AM this morning, 🛌 I expect to be super tired by evening. But the plan is to get to bed early, and keep getting up each morning early. I have best thoughts, and most interest in reading and learning in the early mornings. 📚 Yes, it’s going to be dark in mornings for the next few weeks, but with earth wobble 🌎 and changing of seasons meaning the fastest growth of daylight 🌄 we actually pick up daylight in the morning quickly this time of year.

Today in 1969, in Memphis, Tennessee, James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King, Jr. 🛐 He later unsuccessfully attempts to recant. Didn’t help that the FBI had a very active role in trying to kill King, and while they didn’t pull the trigger, they certainly didn’t offer him any protection and actively harassed him until his death. 👮‍♀️ The FBI, especially ol’ J. Edgar Hoover, was convinced that MLK was a bad news, a dangerous radical. That said, I am not at all convinced that J. Edgar Hoover wasn’t a closeted homosexual with multiple prominent men who took his aggression and insecurities out on the new left. 👬 He certainly was close to Paul Harvey, another character who you had to have a lot of questions about. People should be honest who they are, and not give a duck what others think of them. ✊  And not take out their own insecurities on others, especially if they person of power like J. Edgar Hoover. 😟 It’s funny how us mentally ill people take out own problems on others.

Looking ahead, next Sunday is St. Patrick’s Day 🍀 when the sun will be setting at 7:06 pm with dusk at 7:32 pm. Which means the drunks will be on the roads next weekend, as will the cops trying to catch them. 🍻👮 St. Patricks Day is far more dangerous then the time change for deadly crashes. 🚗💥🚙  People make such a big deal out of  the time change, 🕓 but it’s the beer that kills. And summer is by far most deadly time on the road — more driving, more beers, less cares. On Saint Patricks’ Day 2023, we had rain showers, cloudy and temperatures between 47 and 32 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 45 degrees. We hit a record high of 75 back in 1990.

One of the things I don’t like about owning land is the long commute. Everybody warns me about it, but it’s not like I’m unfamiliar with it having lived in Dormansville for many years growing up and commuting various jobs in the Greater Albany area. I haven’t driven to work in many years, but I do remember those days well. I also drove from Dormansville up to Hudson Valley Community for two years, five days a week. That was about 30 miles each way.

Some people do long commutes to get more affordable property. Other people do it because they like the rural lifestyle, they want acerage, land they can call their own. That’s the camp I fall into. I have determined that a 30 mile commute — 45 minutes each way or an hour and half total is a reasonable trade off for a rural lifestyle. Especially if much of that commute is on fast-moving, 2 lane rural highways, it’s something I can live with even if it’s a pretty big nuisance.

Things have changed in my life — working in the suburban office with acres of parking, and a 9-5 schedule. Except for those dark days in November, December, January and early February, most of the time I will be driving in the daylight. It’s much different then when I was working the late nights, in a downtown office, where the only option for parking was off-site in a large parking garage.

At roughly 350 miles a week (assuming up to 10 miles per day side trips), it’s a lot of driving and it’s tough on cars. As much as 18,200 miles a year. Each week 7 1/2 hours spent motoring if it’s 45 minutes each way. Then again, I guess the flip side is that’s about what I spend on bus between the time getting out to the stop, waiting for the bus to arrive and head home. But a whole lot more expensive. And that’s time I can’t spend exercising or doing other things, though I can certainly stream podcasts and audio books as I drive.

I can figure on using a tankful of gas each week. Probably not an $80 or $100 tankful, as I don’t think my big jacked up truck has all that much useful life in it, but certainly $50-75 a week in fuel, especially if I end up something like a 4×4 compact pickup like a Toyota Tacoma. Probably going to need something with four-wheel drive out in the country for the winter and mud season. When fuel prices inevitably go up to $5 or $6 it will become a big  pain the but though my budget and salary can absorb it. Plus replacing the vehicle every 8-10 years due to the mileage more then the age. Again, I’m sure I can afford it but do I want it?

I don’t know, I kind of like living in the city and busing and biking it to work. I don’t have to worry about weather or breakdowns. But the flip side, is I like being out in country, having fires, burning things, listening to frogs and howl of the coyote and the idea of owning my own land, and not being a pawn at a landlord’s game. Where I have a real home, not a moldy shit shack where I get my mail and plan my next escape to the wilderness. It’s where my roots are. I really struggle to know what’s right but I’m deeply unhappy with the my current situation.