Good evening! Light snowand 32 degrees during the great Christmas Eve black out in Delmar. ❄ There is a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around noontime. 🌡️

As I didn’t want to sit in the darkness inside and because I really didn’t have any dinner when the power went out, 🌌 I sat out back for a while with my camp stove and heater and warmed up some dinner and hot coca.☕ Not a really cold night but I was getting tired and decided head back in and retire to bed. 💤 Pretty night when the moon came out and it started to snow. I stayed up too late last night and want to get to sleep soon.

I saw the power crew go by and it looks like points north and east of Cherry and Delaware still have power do I expect it to be on before long. But I also expect to be asleep by then.⌛ I tried to turn off the lights and unplug the strip over my bed so I won’t be awaken when the power returns.

Because it was so dark before the moon came up – close to full moon – I decided to hang Christmas lights on my truck to get into the spirit. 🎄 I’m going to leave them on all night but I expect it’s possible that the low voltage relay will kick in by morning but that’s fine, the starting battery is isolated and even the accessory battery should start charging by morning when the sun gets high enough to push power out to the solar panel.🔌 Might even be enough sun to reset the relay by morning by itself.

Power outage couldn’t have happened at a worse time for me, as I was sorting out electronic components into boxes on my floor, 🔩as they have become rather disorganized and hard to locate things. I’ve been buying these flat clear tackle boxes for that purpose of sorting them out and finally I’m getting around to having one box for LEDs, one for resistors and capacitors, one for microprocessors and other miscellaneous sensors. 📦Well I moved it out of the way with my flash light finishing up what I could. I guess at least I wasn’t cooking.

Tonight will have a slight chance of snow showers before 10pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 25 degrees at 6am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around December 7th. Maximum wind chill around 18 at 6am; Northwest wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2017, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 17 degrees. The record low of -22 occurred back in 1969.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 91% illuminated. The moon will set at 9:54 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Friday night with partly cloudy skies. The Wolf Moon 🌝 is on Sunday, January 20th. The sun will rise at 7:23 am with the first light at 6:51 am, which is 23 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 56 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 15 seconds over last night.

Christmas Day will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 34 degrees at 1pm. One degree above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around December 22nd. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph. Sounds like a really nice day. Maybe I should plan some hiking. A year ago, we had cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 33 degrees. The record high of 66 was set in 1889. 19.2 inches of snow fell back in 2002.❄

If I do go for a hike tomorrow, I am a bit undecided where.🏃 Probably not too far as I want to hook up the under cabinet lighting I got them for Christmas. I should plan a couple hours for that before Christmas dinner at the folks house. I think the next big adventure will be the long weekend for New Years Eve. 🎇

My parents had a nice Christmas Eve party with my niece, and my sister and my inlaw. Lots of good food and hanging around opening gifts. 🎁 It seemed like a lot of fun for all involved. It was nice seeing my parents, I hadn’t seen them since my trip. My niece seemed to like the star I built her. There is a lot I don’t like about Christmas which is why I don’t celebrate it personally but I family occasions are special. And this year thanks to the black out I actually hung up some Christmas lights on my truck. I guess I did string some warm white lights into my apartment that I bought for camping but honestly they’re not really strung for the holiday. If anything, they’re for Quinn the Eskimo.

I’m having some problems with the auto renewal on my phone, 📲 so I may not post any updates until later when I get to my parents house for Christmas dinner. I think the auto renewal is fixed but I won’t know until morning. If not I’ll have to fix it tomorrow, so I won’t have internet until it’s fixed. But then I won’t have to pay for my phone service for another six months. I’m thinking about buying the full year plan and paying the $500 up front but that’s a lot of money to have locked up in a service contract to save $15 total over the six months of service I buy twice a year. ☎ I don’t have internet at home so I’m very dependent on having my phone for connection to the interwebs.

A picture perfect weekend on tap for the final weekend of the year. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 40. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 30. Typical average high for the weekend is 32 degrees. Figuring I have New Years Eve off, I’m really thinking about a 3 night camping trip starting right after the Save the Pine Bush hike. Maybe the Adirondacks as I think there will be snow at Charles Baker in Brookfield and I don’t want to go back to Betty Brook in Schoharie in the winter in case there is ice, and because that valley is so deep and dark in the winter.

In four weeks on January 21 the sun will be setting at 4:55 pm,🌄 which is 28 minutes and 5 seconds later then tonight. It will be nice with the later sunsets. In 2018 on that day, we had cloudy skies, snow showers and temperatures between 43 and 29 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 30 and 14 degrees. The record high of 61 degrees was set back in 2006.

Looking ahead, New Years Eve 🎆 is in 1 week, Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 is in 3 weeks, Martin Luther King Day 🖤 is in 4 weeks, Presidents Day 👴 is in 8 weeks, Average High is 40 ☀️ is in 10 weeks, April Fools Day 🤡 is in 14 weeks, Tax Day 💰 is in 16 weeks, Earth Day 🌎 is in 17 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 5 months, Memorial Day 🇺🇸 is in 22 weeks, July 🏊🏿 is in 27 weeks, Last Sunset After 8 PM 🌆 is in 33 weeks and Average High Falls To 79 ️Degrees ⛱️️️ is in 8 months. Too soon to be thinking about autumn again.

Good morning! Happy Thursday. Two weeks to Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄️. Tomorrow is the first day of winter. Mostly sunny and 33 degrees in Delmar. Calm wind. Rather hazy though in the city. Fairly pleasant morning, but I’m more then a bit drowsy.💤

A nice morning but I had trouble getting going this morning, ☀ as I had too many cups of coffee at the Pine Bush dinner and that effected my sleep. ☕ Not only did I drink coffee with dinner, I drank more when I started to choke on one of the cookies during the dinner. Kind of a busy day yesterday but after it all I did make it to the Pine Bush dinner. 🌲Taking the local to work. 🚌

The sun will set at 4:24 pm with dusk around 4:56 pm, which is 28 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 40 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph.

Today will have increasing clouds ☁, with a high of 41 degrees at 1pm. Seven degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 3rd. South wind 3 to 6 mph. A year ago, we had with more clouds in the afternoon. The high last year was 40 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 1957. 8.4 inches of snow fell back in 1975.❄

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 97% illuminated with the moon rising at 3:03 pm. The moon will set at 5:51 am. December’s Cold Moon 🌕 will be tomorrow. The sun will rise at 7:21 am with the first light at 6:49 am, which is 32 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 57 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 seconds over last night.

Tonight will rain, mainly after 9pm. The rain could be heavy at times. 🌧 Low of 39 degrees at 6pm. 20 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 18th. South wind around 6 mph becoming calm. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. Going to be a wet and warm night into the day tomorrow. In 2017, we had light snow in the evening. It got down to 21 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1942.

I continue to work on writing the code ⌨ for my niece’s flashing star, 💫 right now I’ve come up with 16 different color patterns. It’s a little hard to think of additional ones, although I’m sure there is more ramps and flashing patterns I could come up with. I want to try put as much in as possible in the code, as it would make more interesting, but after a while coming up with new patterns is hard.

The Pine Bush dinner was interesting but I’m not sure if I agree with having speakers pushing commercial products that they’re making money off of. 💰Geothermal is interesting and I guess there are many benefits to solar energy although I have my doubts about those large industrial solar facilities. I think there is a lot of questions that need to be asked about developing large tracks of farm land and forest,🎋 covering them with panels made out of hazardous materials that will pose risks for generations to come especially if they aren’t properly hauled off to landfills at the end of their lives. ⬛ Cow manure rots, farm fields revert to the woods by themselves without government intervening. But I guess I’m a minority voice, to be grouped in with the fossil fuel proponents just for asking questions of the government bureaucrats.

I will probably go out hiking somewhere on Sunday, maybe not too far away, 🚶 then out to the folks house for Christmas Eve. It looks like virtually all of the snow except for the highest locations of the Adirondacks will be gone after the heavy rains of Friday into Saturday. ☔ With the rain on Saturday, I will finish up working on my various Christmas gifts that I’ve been working on building. I got a bunch of perf and strip board in the mail the other day, for building further products.🔬 Always a good thing on cold winter nights, except for the drafts blowing smoke from the flux burning off into my face.

For the New Years Eve long weekend, I am considering going camping up in the Adirondacks or maybe Brookfield. 🏕 With the snow gone all over locally, and only a little left in the Adirondacks, it might be nice to get away. I still have camp food stored away, the high calorie stuff I don’t like to eat at home and plenty of propane for at least a few nights camping, although if I do a full three nights, I might get the tank to be filled to be safe rather then sorry. A nice fire is always good, and if we have some sunny weather, some hunting and hiking would be a lot of fun. I kind of like Brookfield because those campsites you can drive up into, as if I go there, it will be in snow-free weather. Plus good cellphone reception which can make the long nights pass quicker.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄️ when the sun will be setting at 4:34 pm with dusk at 5:06 pm. On that day in 2018, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 22 and 7 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1913.

Good morning! Happy Saint Nicholas Day 🎅! That’s a holiday that involves wooden shoes that are compostable I believe. A refreshing change from all that plastic and styrofoam. Four weeks to Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄. Even while the evenings get longer the mornings will be darker. Snow flurries, gray and 24 degrees in Delmar.❄ There is a south-southwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. Things will start to thaw out at around 10 am. 🌡️

Today will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 38 degrees at 4pm. More sun later, or so I hope. Still haven’t fixed the lights in my office, so dark days are so dark. One degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 8th. Southwest wind 6 to 9 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 53 degrees. The record high of 68 was set in 2001. 12.5 inches of snow fell back in 2003.❄

The sun will set at 4:21 pm with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 6 seconds earlier than yesterday. Big whoop. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 36 degrees. There will be a southwest breeze at 8 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 10 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 3 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a slight chance of snow showers after 8pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 23 degrees at 6am. Two degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical night around December 10th. Southwest wind 8 to 10 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies with more clouds in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 26 degrees. The record low of -7 occurred back in 1901.

Tonight I’m going to go to Tractor Supply in Glenmont get my propane tank topped off and look at buying a good quality axe. 💨 My propane tank is more than half full but I want make sure I have a full tank that way I won’t have a cold night later next week. Running out of propane is no fun, especially winter camping.

Last night I loaded a bunch of my camping gear into the truck. As I noted yesterday, I tested out the heater and confirmed that id working well.♨ Heater smelled a little like pine sap when I first turned it on, must have gotten some sap on it last year.🌲 But it works well. I didn’t try out each hose, but I feel confident that both are working fine and are dirt-free. I am thinking about ordering another lantern globe from Walmart and picking it up either on Friday or Saturday, just to be safe and m

I am thinking about getting some warm white Christmas lights to decorate the campsite, and I found some non lighted decorations around the apartment. 🎄Long nights this time of year but I figure I can fill them with color. 🎁 Assuming we have as much sun as they are promising, I’m should have plenty of power for the long nights. In the winter, with out shading from the trees, the solar panel really does an awesome job.

Still chewing over what campsite is want to get, a year around plowed road is my strong preference, as is sheltered from the wind. That will keep me safe from an unexpected heavy snow fall, which seems unlikely based on next week’s forecast. Cell service also is nice to pass the time on the long nights. 🌃 I’d also like a good view of the stars from the site and lots of sun for the solar panel. I’m not sure if I can have all those things, and it’s possible certain campsites will be taken by hunters or inaccessible due to snow banks, although I could always shovel them out. But I have some good ones on mind.

One problem I may is getting water during this time of year, as many lakes may be frozen. I am sure there are some springs and ponds I can break to get water though. 🌊 I’ll bring six gallons of water, and then if I can need to get more water, I’ll break the ice or find some open water. I bet Seneca Lake still has open water that I could get from the shoreline, I don’t think that’s frozen yet. This time of year, I will make sure my water bottles are connected to a long rope in case I drop them, and they start to float away in the frigid water, as happened camping in November a few years back, and I almost permanently lost it in the drink.🚰

Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Latest Sunrise of the Winter 🌄 when the sun will be setting at 4:34 pm with dusk at 5:06 pm. On that day in 2018, we had rain, drizzle, freezing drizzle, mist, cloudy skies and temperatures between 37 and 31 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1913.