I am thinking about taking the first week of November off from work ⛺
I’ve been doing a lot of study of the maps of the Loyalstock State Forest in the Endless Mountains Country of Pennsylvania, namely World’s End State Park. I could get a permit for a back country site – it’s certainly easy enough with the DCNR online website. That wouldn’t be too far compared to West Virginia and I’ve only briefly stopped at World’s End once coming back from Pennsylvania. There are some interesting looking trails and vista’s out that way. That said, this time of year I have to worry about snow and ice and there might be a fire ban in the forest as there often is seasonally in Pennsylvania.
Another option I’ve been considering is getting a permit for Hicks Run and camping down at Elk State Forest to hear the buggle of the elk and watch the elk graze. I might also stay a night or two at the Austin Dam primative campground which is a ten dollar donation to the not for profit that runs it. Might even be even more remote country than Loyalstock. Then there always is the possibility of a night or two at Asaph Run which is ten bucks and kind of too smushed together for my liking but is nice being close to the Pine Creek Valley Rail Trail.
Truth be told it’s been two years since I’ve been to Pennsylvania and I’d like to get back. I like seeing the Pennsylvania hick towns and the wild country boys that live out there. Everything in Pennsylvania has a very different land ethic – its about working the land and conserving it for generations to come. Plus I like seeing the all the burn barrels, burb piles and all the redneck shit only legal in Pennsylvania. Life just is wilder in the back roads of PA in the hills and the hollows, between the gob piles and abandoned old towns.
But that’s only one option. I kind of don’t want to go too far. Gas prices are kind of high and while I’m paranoid about my increasingly loud tires and that bad shock bushing, both which I will replace soon. Plus if I stay in New York State I can strap on my back tag, put on my shotgun and go for a walk in the woods. I still want to get out to Cazenovia but unless I get a camping permit, that’s only three nights. Plus I’m not big into campground camping. I like to have big fires, burn things, drink beer and listen to music good and loud. Not behave neighborly like one should in a campground.
For that I kind of like the Finger Lakes National Forest. I know you say not again! But I like how you don’t need a permit so no planning for stays up to two weeks. There are many fields and forest to wander around in and if it snows the roads are plowed. I like being able to set up camp and stay in the same place for a full week. I wouldn’t mind checking out the Western Finger Lakes but then the issue becomes where to camp, unless I want to go down to Allegany County. Or I guess Sugar Hill could split the dime – maybe some of the more westerly forests.
I’ve also thought about Cazenovia or Brookfield and then heading down to Chenango County to Balasm Pond in Pharsalia and then maybe to Long Pond in Greene. Some nice rural country out that way and it’s been a long time since I’ve been out that way. 2014 probably.
Mom suggested that I consider New Hampshire but that state kind of gives me bad vibes. I just don’t think of it being on vacation to drive around, searching for a spot to park my big jacked up truck and then navigate through crowds of people all wearing cashmere LL Bean sweaters to climb a mountain. Or camping in some crowded campground with a shit ton of rules. I’d rather just have my space to do my thing. If my choice is New Hampshire or staying home, might just stay home and save the money.
I don’t know, I should probably take off that first week of November before it gets too cold. Otherwise I’m going to loose a bunch of time at the end of the year. I certainly do want to do a few more trips though before the end of the year. But I don’t know – my truck is falling apart, my budget is broke and I’m not doing well emotionally. I want to get away, but every day becomes such a struggle. Maybe though some quiet time in the woods will do me some good and get me out of the rut I’m in, struggling every day to just keep my head above water.
There was a thunderstorm ⛈ way to the north so the sunset was a bust but overall a pretty nice relaxed day. But I can’t say the same thing about the peanut butter cup sundae 🥜 that I’m eating from the Glen Dairy Bar.
Mostly cloudy ⛅ and 67 degrees at the Clute Park. Calm wind. The dew point is 54 degrees. To bad the sunset was such a bummer.
Today I spent the bulk of the day hiking in Connecticut Hill Wildlife Management Area. 🚶🏻 A lot of rough back woods roads and a lot of wildlife to see. 🐦 🐸 The forest demonstration area was pretty neat to check out for differences of birds and wildlife. All the roads were very rough, I ended up locking it into 4×4 low and on the steepest and roughest of hills I locked it in first gear, ⚙ which maxes put at 5 mph. A lot of very steep roads there which are badly eroded from the rain. There was this one vey steep hill on Todd Road where the kayak 🛶 barely cleared a downed tree – the trees was so low the CB antenna hit. I was sure I was going to have to back up the hill or take the kayak off but I went slow and cleared.
As planned I kayaked 🛶 in Bad Indian Swamp but only got 3/4 mile from the old Airport Road along the drainage canal and part of a channel before it got to shallow. 🐦 Lots of birds including multiple great blue herons and ones I need to look up in Merlin. Also hiked around a bit of the nature trail including crossing that crazy looking bridge. Bugs were real bad 🐜 so I didn’t stay long. It’s fine, time was getting late.
I got a delicious peanut butter cup sundae 🍧at the Glen Dairy Bar and watched the sunset or lack thereof along Seneca Lake. Now it’s getting dark and time to head back to camp. ⛺ I want to have dinner and then may hike to Foster Pond especially if it clears out later. 🌃
I am already thinking about tomorrow. 🤔 I am leaning towards taking down camp slowly in the morning and then going to Taughanock State Park until the rain picks up in the afternoon.⛈️ I’m leaning towards taking NY 26 from Whitney Point to Pine Woods and US 20 the rest of the way home, that way I can see a new route 🚘 along the Otselic River and avoid driving 65 mph in the rain with the kayak on the roof along Interstate 88. I like taking new roads whenever I can. 🗺
I’m a big of farmers who are essentially Living Off the Earth and think Rednecks are Noble Savages. Dairy Farming are key to our rural landscape. I’d trust a farmer or a hunter in a pile of guts he’s butchered over any ivory-tower scientist.
Good evening! Partly clear and 52 degrees at the Stoney Pond State Forest. There is a west-southwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 43 degrees.
Walked down to Stoney Pond but there is enough clouds ☁️ that the Syracuse light pollution makes the stars ✨ much more difficult than previous nights. Came back to camp and sat by the fire 🔥 for a while. Definitely some nice scenery hiking along the Canastota-Cazenovia Trail and poking around Fenner. The wind farm and all the various livestock farms up that way are quite interesting to see. 🐮 It’s amazing what people can make from the earth 🌎 tillage and grass. 🚜 God bless the grass.
Joe Biden is the president elect and I listened to his speech 🎤👴🏻. Honestly with socially distant drive in rally due to COVID-19 it sounded like it was held at the median of the Belt Parkway. 🚘 I get it but it’s weird to hear car horns at a political speech. I voted for Jo Jergenson but I think Biden will be a much better president than Trump. Biden has so much more experience, he listens to experts, and he’s a calming influence during the pandemic. 👾But even if I felt differently, I don’t have much say in the presidency beyond a bubble I marked on the voting Scantron machine. 🖋️ I don’t do many political rally anymore – protests are fun but I’m not interested in defending any particular cause. 🤜
Maybe Trump to a certain extent was a good thing. 🤬 He tore down the old rules about obscenity, brought down the presidency in some ways to the people by replacing the class and decorum of the office with that of a cheap suit worn by Billy Fuscillo. 🕴️ He made politicians a lot more free on their social media and many ways elevated politics over bureaucary and decorum which had gotten awful stuffy 🧐 for the modern era. I think it’s fine for the world to know the president poops 💩 and tweets from his gold plated toilet 🚽. His three justices he appointed in the Supreme Court will provide an effective check on the new administration. ⚖ No one party should be too powerful. 🛢 That farm I passed with the very well used and blacked with melted plastic all over them burn barrels had a big ol Trump flag out front. But as a farmer I’m sure he’s done more than most to conserve our earth 🌎 and probably doesn’t send much trash to the landfill. 🔥
Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 47 degrees at 6am. 13 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 27th. Southwest wind around 6 mph. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 23 degrees. The record low of 18 occurred back in 1971.
Idon’t know it feels colder than that already, ❄ but truth be tolditwas so warm and sunny today that everything seems a lot colder then it is. But sitting the next to the campfire 🔥with my vest and cowboy hat 🤠 it’s quite warm. I realize that there is so much I can’t change about the world today but I can continue to enjoy my own life free and work to save for a better tomorrow. 💵 The politicians are going to do what they do but I can’t turn off the radio 📻 and avoid the social media. 📱 I don’t think I’ll ever own of those colored televisions 📺,
Tonight will have a Last Quarter 🌗 Moon with 54% illuminated. The moon will rise at 10:33 pm. The Beaver 🐻 Moon is on Monday, November 23. The darkest hour is at 11:47 pm, followed by dawn at 6:16 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:46 am in the east-southeast (112°) and last for 3 minutes and 9 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 16 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:27 am with sun in the east-southeast (119°).Tonight will have 13 hours and 59 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 26 seconds over last night.
Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 68 degrees at 2pm. 17 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 27th. Maximum dew point of 46 at 5pm. Light west wind. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 37 degrees. The record high of 75 was set in 1975. 1.7 inches of snow fell back in 1894.❄
Tomorrow I have to take down camp ⛺, officially by eleven o’clock when my three night tenancy expires. I will miss the wild Hill and Hollow country of Madison County 🐮 but it’s not going away any time soon. I mean this was the exact same campsite I was at a decade ago. But with the mild weather ☀ I haven’t been able to enjoy the solitude that was the case a decade ago – people are enjoying the nice weather. Can’t blame them. Me too!
Central NY 🗽 is different than the Adirondacks or the Green Mountains but I like the agricultural landscape for a change. 🐮 There are a lot of neat trails and scenic vistas out along this way. I honestly haven’t spent a lot of time out in Cazenovia area in years and the Trailway is quite nice. 🚶🏻 That said, Chittenango Falls was way too crowded but particularly the high country part of the Trailway was super quiet. 🤫 I just wish more people would wear masks on the trail 😷. Apparently social distancing isn’t as popular here. 🗣️
Iysa beautiful landscape out here, and some day I want to live back out in the country 🏡🐮🐷 but not one of those big fancy houses. More ramshackle like those often rundown farms I pass on by. There is something so beautiful about how nature grows back and works to take over everything – the abandoned homes and equipment, and just the mud and muck that can be found on every farm.
In four weeks on December 5 the sun will be setting in the west-southwest (239°) at 4:28 pm,🌄 which is 18 minutes and 45 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had mostly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 38 and 28 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 40 and 25 degrees. The record high of 65 degrees was set back in 2001.
I may do a December trip ⛺ but I don’t really know, as I expect soon for remote work 💻 to be ending and I don’t have a lot of vacation time left at this point before the end of the year. I feel like the abnormally warm weather is soon to switch to be cold ❄ and snow 🌨. And once the roads are icy and snow covered, camping season is likely done for me unless I hot tent 🎪 locally as I’ve done some years during the holidays.
Looking ahead, Regular Deer Season in Southern Zone 🦌 is in 2 weeks, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 3 weeks, Repeal of Prohibition Day 🍺 is in 4 weeks, Boxing Day 🥊 is in 7 weeks, Static Electric Shock Day 🧼 is in 9 weeks, National Cheese Lovers Day 🧀 is in 11 weeks, Save the Pine Bush Turns 43 🦋 is in 13 weeks, 5:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 15 weeks and Snow Moon 🌕 is in 16 weeks.
Good evening! Mostly clear and 61 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. The dew point is 51 degrees. A pleasant evening, not too cool, sitting out back watching some YouTube 🎞️ I downloaded and then a copy of the NY Back Country Hunters series on Learn to Hunt. Always good to learn a thing or two new.
It was a nice day up at Rennselearville State Forest. 🌻💮🦋 I do wish though I had gotten an earlier start so I would have had more time to explore more of the forest 🔭 but I did get a few hours to poke around the forest. 🌲The morning was kind of busy with work stuff – I ended up having to run some numbers 🔢 after a work call 📞 then I got working on some edits to something else.
Like always I do like poking around those back country roads 🐮 and this time up at Rennselearville State Forest was no exception. First time I’ve been on Travis Hill in many years – still mostly just hunting camps up there. 🦌 A lot of changes to the tree cover at the state forest 🌲since I was last there with harvests.
Tonight will have increasing clouds ☁, with a low of 55 degrees at 4am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 8th. Maximum dew point of 51 at 10pm. Light southeast wind becoming south 5 to 10 mph after midnight. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 45 degrees. The record low of 37 occurred back in 1964.
Tonight will have a Waining Crescent 🌘 Moon with 22% illuminated. The Harvest 🌽 Moon is on Sunday, September 27. The darkest hour is at 12:52 am, followed by dawn at 6:05 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:33 am in the east (84°) and last for 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:11 am with sun in the east (90°).Tonight will have 11 hours and 23 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 50 seconds over last night.
This evening when I was at the folks house 🏡 I went online and increased my weekly average investments in adjustance to my increased pay as a supervisor. Investments are growing nicely although I’m not sure if I they are fully above the pre pandemic highs so far its been good times. 💵 Both retirement and mid term savings are growing 📈 and I’m getting closer to being able to afford the off-grid property in the 2030s and partial retirement to hobby farm – homestead in the 2040s. 🐐
I do need to make some hard decisions by the end of November 💰 because I expect to be retiring Big Red next fall and I may not want to renew all of my certificate of deposit if I need a new vehicle. 🚘 That said, I’ve put more money into regular savings going forward and less in the market because I’m starting to think that the stock market is getting way over valued with all the coronavirus stimulus. Interest rates – at 7/10th of a percent on savings sucks though as your almost paying the bank 🏦 for the privilege of holding your money. I don’t know if I want another car or truck but if I do I’ll probably look at something more economical to drive that uses less fuel ⛽ and spends less time at the shop. 🔧 Maybe a Prisus or a Tacoma.
I find motoring 🏁 incredibly stressful 😵 and I look and see how much damage driving 🚘 does to our communities. Cars have ruined our urban fabric and polluted the landscape with smoke, noise and acres of asphalt. They kill and mame many and are so expensive to drive and insure. 🚑 And they always break down 🔧 and make scary noises. But on the other hand, they are the best ways to escape cities to the mountains 🗻 and remote farm country. 🚜
Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, mainly after 3pm. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 75 degrees at 3pm. Morning shouldn’t be too bad though. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 10th. Maximum dew point of 61 at 4pm. South wind 9 to 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had light rain in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 72 degrees. The record high of 92 was set in 1948.
I am thinking tomorrow about hiking out to Five Rivers 🐦 in the morning before it gets all cloudy ⛅ and starts to rain ☔. I still need to keep working on the paper 📄 I’m editing and I have numbers 🔢 to crunch among other work projects this afternoon – and maybe some new blog content to do too.
In four weeks on October 10 the sun will be setting in the west (261°) at 6:20 pm,🌄 which is 49 minutes and 10 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 69 and 49 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 62 and 41 degrees. The record high of 89 degrees was set back in 1939.
Looking ahead, Columbus Day ⛵ 🍂 is a month away, Northern Zone Regular Season 🦌 is in 5 weeks, Halloween 🦇 and the Blue Moon 🌕 is in 7 weeks, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 11 weeks, Repeal of Prohibition Day 🍺 is in 12 weeks, Boxing Day 🥊 is in 15 weeks, Static Electric Shock Day 🧼 is in 17 weeks, National Cheese Lovers Day 🧀 is in 19 weeks, Save the Pine Bush Turns 43 🦋 is in 21 weeks, 5:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 23 weeks, and Snow Moon 🌕 is in 24 weeks.
Good evening! Cloudy and damp around 70 degrees on Delmar. ☁️ There is a west breeze at 13 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 67 degrees. The skies will clear around 9 pm.
Not a super nice day so I stayed home 🏡 and read and worked on a variety of little projects. I wanted to go for an evening walk 🚶🏻 but the threat of rain was much too high. Tomorrow I’ll get out hiking. Put together some new maps 🗺️and stuff for the blog, was reading another book 📙 about homesteading. 🐐 Cheeses and dairy science is fascinating stuff 🧀 – minor changes in processing milk 🥛 can create vastly different effects products or more likely ruin it entirely.
I finally baked up that cookie mix 🍪that expired in April. Good peanut 🥜 butter cookies that I bought last fall for my West Virginia trip but never eat. 😋 I figured I better eat it before the mice get in an chew holes in the packaging.🐁It’s been a bad year for mice in the woods – something people were talking about yesterday on Facebook and I noticed we’re bad both in the Finger Lakes and Piseco Powley Road.
Tonight will have a slight chance of showers before 11pm. Partly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 58 degrees at 5am. Typical for tonight. Maximum dew point of 67 at 9pm. West wind 10 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 38 occurred back in 1982.
Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon with 90% illuminated. At 9 PM, the moon was in the south-southeast (156°) at an altitude of 21° from the horizon, some 239,388 miles away from where you are looking up from the earth. 🚀 At the state speed limit of 55 mph, you’ll make it there by February 27th. Buckle up for safety! 💺 The darkest hour is at 12:57 am, followed by dawn at 5:49 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:19 am in the east-northeast (77°) and last for 2 minutes and 59 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 6:56 am with sun in the east (83°).Tonight will have 10 hours and 44 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 44 seconds over last night.
Tomorrow will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 72 degrees at 3pm. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 16th. Maximum dew point of 58 at 7am. Northwest wind 13 to 15 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 82 degrees. The record high of 98 was set in 1953. The great Heat Wave of 1953.
Should be a nice autumn like day. 🍂 Nice change from the humidity and stormy weather today. I am thinking of doing some hiking and fishing 🎣 at Partridge Run tomorrow. Should be a great day to spend outdoors but maybe a bit chilly by the time I go out to my parents house for Sunday dinner. 🍲 But then again, Tuesday is September. Summer has quickly bit the dust.
I get so tired of hearing so many police 🚨 sirens lately. The past few months they really have been abusing them it seems. For a while they were relatively quiet, tapping the sirens only briefly at the traffic light 🚦 to warn motorists but lately it’s been non-stop and it’s annoying. That and the super throaty motorcycles and trucks 🏍. Maybe I’m noticing it more this year as I’m home all of the time I’m not in the woods enjoying the quiet. 🤫
I am planning my next trip after Labor Day Weekend. 🍂 I’ll have to get out my blaze orange and gun cleaned up at that point. I’m thinking the Spectulator Area most likely especially if I’m planning several weekdays because the library is a pleasant place to work for Zoom Meetings. After October 1st I might camp and work from a combination of Stoney Pond State Forest and Charles Baker. ⛺ I can probably get Wi-Fi at the Cazenovia and Hamilton libraries out there for Zoom. Remote work has its benefits. 💻No permit is needed for Stoney Pond State Forest after October 1st and it’s unlikely I’ll see anyone there except maybe a grizzled old hunter. 🎫 Fishing in Nelson Swamp is a lot of fun too.
I really enjoy reading and looking at pictures of folks off grid properties on the Facebook. 🏡 I just really like the simple and the small with lots of land in remote country. Some folks are really fancy or big builders but that certainly aint me. Some are into art work and making things pretty but I’m fine with chipboard for walls. The less you have, the less to spend money on, the less to break or have to throw away regularly. 🛠️
I’ve considered doing a trip in October to the Finger Lakes 💻 and remote working from there but I have concerns about the length of day and having enough sunlight then to keep things charged and the long trip back to Albany after hours should something break that I can’t continue to work from there likedead fuse, inverter or other problems with the solar system which I couldn’t fix in the field. ⬛ It would be fun though to enjoy the leaves, 🍁 hunt before 9 AM 🐿️🐰🦃and then work the rest of the day from camp but maybe exhausting to boot. At the National Forest you can camp for two weeks in one site, no permits required.
I also don’t want to put on too many miles or break shit in my truck 🔧before the state inspection in November. Since addressing the tire wear issue on the truck in June things have been a lot better at slowing the wear and I’m not concerned about this year’s inspection but I also don’t want to have any kind of costly repairs this autumn if possible. 🔩
In four weeks on September 26 the sun will be setting in the west (269°) at 6:45 pm,🌄 which is 49 minutes and 15 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 69 and 53 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 68 and 47 degrees. The record high of 90 degrees was set back in 2017.
Looking ahead, Northern Zone Regular Season 🦌 is in 7 weeks, Halloween 🛥️ and the Blue Moon 🌕 is in 9 weeks, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 13 weeks, Repeal of Prohibition Day 🍺 is in 14 weeks, Boxing Day 🥊 is in 17 weeks, Cold Moon 🌕 is in 4 months, Static Electric Shock Day 🧼 is in 19 weeks, National Cheese Lovers Day 🧀 is in 21 weeks, 38th Birthday 🎉 is in 5 months, Save the Pine Bush Turns 43 🦋 is in 23 weeks, 5:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 25 weeks, Snow Moon 🌕 is in 26 weeks and Snow Moon 🌕 is in 26 weeks.
Good evening! Partly cloudy and 74 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. ⛅ There is a north breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 63 degrees. Does feel a tad bit muggy after my walk 🚶 to Foster Pond. It’s nice though now laying back in the hammock with the crocks on. 👡
I enjoyed the drive out here via NY 23 🚗 except for the very bone jarring 🤕 section when I ended up on a very steep seasonal use only dirt road down to Caroline. Traffic was bad in Ithaca but that is norm. It’s kind of hard to avoid Ithaca in my experience – there aren’t many good alternative routes. 🚜 I really enjoyed the rural country and some of those small towns that the highway shuns and are super sleepy. It was surprisingly cool out – I didn’t use the air conditioning at all and drove with the windows down 👃 noticing the smells of farm country and the little towns I past by. While nobody is chopping silage yet, only going to be a few more weeks 🌽 before thousands of acres of silage start getting chopped across Upstate NY.
Some day I’ll live in a cute little rural town 👨🌾 like so many I passed by today. But not New York State – too expensive and too many restrictions on guns 🔫 and my freedom to have fires 🔥 and burn things on my own land. Not to mention taxes 💸 and code restrictions 📋. I want to be able to farm 🐐 and be left alone 🤠 on my off-grid 📴 property. I’m not afraid of poop 💩, playing mud 👢, managing my own waste 🗑 or making a little smoke. 💨
Did a little hike down to one of the pastures 🐃 and Foster Lake. 🐸 A lot of people there but its a nice weekend and a lot of campgrounds are closed during the pandemic. Lot of frogs in the lake. I bet if I go there Monday evening 🌃 virtually nobody will be there. I thought about a night hike there tonight but I’ve done quite a bit of hiking today and I didn’t want to be stumbling around a lot of people at night during the pandemic.
Did some reading 📖 for a while, mostly this very outdated book I got from the library about trendy wishy-washy green off-grid living 🌎, not as much the nuts and bolts 🔩 of real life out in the sticks trying to make as much of a life in the woods as possible as the many rural folks in mobile homes with a few solar panels tied to them as is increasingly common in rural areas. 🏡
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃 , with a low of 62 degrees at 5am. One degree above normal. Maximum dew point of 63 at 6pm. Light and variable wind. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 64 degrees. The record low of 46 occurred back in 1989.
A ready when the breeze picks up its a bit chilly. 🌾But then again it often is cool up here on the Backbone. Just kind of the nature of being so high above the lakes.
Had some trouble getting the lantern 🏮 lit again and it was burning slow and dim. Tapped it a bit to free up some stuck carbon and now that it’s been burning for a while now it’s quite bright. 🔆 It will be good for reading by the fire later in the week. 📙 But I’m too tired to read tonight.
Definitely a nice sunset 🌇 from the pasture in the Finger Lakes National Forest. It was a different view than I had taken a pictures of from years before. This place I could walk to from camp which was nice. 📸 One thing that was weird that while I was in the pasture I started to smell cigarettes smoke pretty strong 🚬 but I think it was just the farmer letting the cows back out in the pasture after milking. 🐮 Smoke sometimes carries a ways.
As much as I didn’t like this campsite as first 🙄 my mind has changed a bit as I like the quiet and being further off the road. 🌄 Solar power is good here in the morning for charging the batteries 🔋. And the lack of cell service means less playing on the phone. 📱 I’m not sure though if I’m going to stay at this campsite or move somewhere else later this week. That said, it’s vacation and not a work trip so it’s good to be off the grid. 🔕
Tonight will have a Waining Gibbous 🌖 Moon with 75% illuminated. The moon will rise at 11:04 pm. The darkest hour is at 1:14 am, followed by dawn at 5:37 am, and sun starting to rise at 6:08 am in the east-northeast (67°) and last for 3 minutes and 8 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 3 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 6:47 am with sun in the east-northeast (74°).Tonight will have 9 hours and 50 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 23 seconds over last night.
Tomorrow will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 82 degrees at 3pm. Typical for Tomorrow. Maximum dew point of 61 at 7am. Southwest wind 3 to 8 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became thunderstorm by afternoon. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 81 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 2001.
I was originally thinking about hanging out at camp tomorrow 🛶 but the weather seems so nice that I think I will try some kayaking from that new Seneca Lake Boat Launch 🛥 and maybe paddle a bit on the shoreline and then do the Montour Canal and possibly some of the paddlable parts of Bad Indian Marsh. I also should get food for camping 🍔 and maybe a good dinner at Glen Dairy Bar. 🍦
Monday I’ll get up fairly early and head to the Watkins Glen pool. 🏊 Get there really fast early for parking o but hike the Upper Glen Trail up past the reservoirs which never get much hiker traffic 🚶 then swim in the afternoon. 🏖 I’m sure when I’m on the deck I’m the chairs I won’t have to wear a mask. 💺 I’m sure they’ll be well spread out for social distancing.
In four weeks on September 5 the sun will be setting in the west (279°) at 7:34 pm,🌄 which is 43 minutes and 59 seconds earlier then today. In 2019 on that day, we had partly sunny, patches of fog and temperatures between 72 and 52 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 76 and 56 degrees. The record high of 92 degrees was set back in 2018.
Looking ahead, Northern Zone Regular Season 🦌 is in 10 weeks, Halloween 🛥️ and the Blue Moon 🌕 is in 12 weeks, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 16 weeks, Repeal of Prohibition Day 🍺 is in 17 weeks, Boxing Day 🥊 is in 20 weeks, Bubble Bath Day 🧼 is in 5 months, Static Electric Shock Day 🧼 is in 22 weeks, National Cheese Lovers Day 🧀 is in 24 weeks, Save the Pine Bush Turns 43 🦋 is in 26 weeks, 5:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 28 weeks and Snow Moon 🌕 is in 29 weeks.
Bicycle Trails and “Blackie” My Mountain Bike 
R Statistical Programming 
Python and Pandas 
Politics 
The Earth 
Saving Money 
Mission Fifty, Smoking Grass & Being Healthier 
/ Enjoying Life 
