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January 1, 2020 Morning

Good morning! Happy New Years Day 2020 🎉 ! It’s a new morning in a new decade. Next Wednesday is Bubble Bath Day 🠼򏀮 Partly cloudy, breezy and 29 degrees at the Cole Hill State Forest in Berne. ❄ More clouds then sun but when the blue peaks through its pretty nice with the ice on the trees. Breezy, ️16 mph breeze from the west 🌬 . The current wind chill is 17. Things will start to thaw out at around noontime. 🌡️ A chilly but kind of pretty morning when I got up briefly to do my business 💩 outside.

So we made it to the new decade. 🎇 I guess that should surprise no one, it’s just another stepping stone 🗻 in the great progression of things. One year closer to all hell breaking loose with climate change. That said, it was kind of neat to spend New Years Eve in the wilderness especially with that very brief winter thunderstorm. I wish it had been a little colder when I set up camp though as things were a bit sloshy 💧for a while until the mercury dropped. Made for the sled sliding well with the gear. Everything is frozen solid this morning though.

Coffee with egg nog ☕ is good on this first morning, which is a bit chilly but not too bad. Like anything it’s all a matter of how you choose to dress. 👚 Of course half the winter I keep my apartment at fifty degrees to save on the heat so I can’t complain that much about 29 degrees in the wilderness, sitting next to the propane heater. Gotta save money 💵 so I can burn it in my is jacked up truck.

A new decade with new challenges but I’ll embrace them as they come. 🎉 Always keep on learning and saving for a better tomorrow. I think by 2030 I’ll be much closer to owning land and finally getting to a better place to live with more freedom. 😍

An off grid property like a hunting camp way out in the country without running water or electricity on 40 acres is a lot more affordable than one might think 💭. Certainly a steal compared to the plastic houses 🏡 the suburbanites love. Taxes are so much lower in a place like Missouri too. I bet when you generate your own power with solar, haul your own water, heat with wood you chop your own self and meat you harvest yourself, you are a lot more conscious of waste. ♻

Only a few more weeks of plastic bags 👝 at the supermarkets. I have some cloth bags I got from work I’ve been saving for some time to use when the new law goes into effect. I’ll just need to make sure I reserve them for shopping purposes 🏪 and not bring them to work with lunch or carry them out to the woods with gear for camping ⛺. I used to use reusable bags a lot more years ago, but stopped because I never had them with me. I was thinking this morning how I’ll miss them for camping – so convenient for carrying gear, keeping things dry and storing camp trash until it’s burnt 🔥. I bought paper rather than Styrofoam bowels for camping this time – they’re actually a lot more durable in the pack, don’t smell nasty when they’re burnt and the more I learn about Styrofoam the more nasty I realize it is – especially the blowing agents and climate change. They’re not that much more expensive. 🍚 Now I get that there isn’t much of a difference between paper and Styrofoam in a landfill – waste of all types barely break down in landfills but that’s fine because I don’t want tend to burn my camp trash.

Back from dreaming to the forecast for today. New Year’s Day 2029 will have a slight chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 35 degrees at 2pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 15th. West wind around 17 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 53 degrees. The record high of 57 was set in 1966. 9.2 inches of snow fell back in 1961.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:01 pm with sun having an altitude of 24.3° from the due south horizon (-46.5° vs. 6/21). Still got a ways to go before the sun is high in the sky. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:48 pm with the sun in the southwest (231°). 📸 Might actually be a good time to take some pictures this afternoon, especially in the hill towns with all the ice. The sunset is in the west-southwest (239°) starting at 4:30 pm and lasts for 3 minutes and 24 seconds with dusk around 5:05 pm, which is 50 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:41 pm. At sunset, look for possible snow showers 🌨 and temperatures around 32 degrees. The wind chill around sunset will be 21. ☃️ Breezy, 16 mph breeze 🍃 from the west. Today will have 9 hours and 6 minutes of daytime, an increase of 43 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight, that is for the New Years Day Eve fondue my parents are having will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 22 degrees at 6am. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 4th. I’m ready to skip ahead to March. Saves on the heating bills, says the boy who puts $60 bills into the tank of his big jacked up truck but hates paying $80 for heat and electricity. ♨ Maximum wind chill around 17 at 3am; West wind 6 to 15 mph. 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 20 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1970.

This afternoon having cheese fondue at the parents house 🍲 as their annual New Years Day celebration 🎉. Always a fun way to toast in the new year. Kind of hard to believe it’s already 2020, seemed like we were celebrating 2019 only a few days ago. Last year went by so fast.

Rain and snow this weekend but not really cold. 💦 Saturday, rain likely. Cloudy, with a high near 43. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Sunday, a chance of snow before 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 33. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 31 degrees.

This next weekend is a stay at home weekend except for the Save the Pine Bush meeting and maybe hiking in the Pine Bush before it. 🚶 I doubt they’ll have enough snow to ski 🎿 there. But that’s fine. The Pine Bush often is just as pretty without snow than with it.

🌹🌻🌼Only 78 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼

I know, what a joke 🃏 with the flowers 🌷and calendar 📅 spring. I mean by then you might see farmers in Alabama posting pictures of happy cows 🐮 grazing on grass for the first time but it’s still a month or five weeks until you’ll see any real green in outlying parts. Still it gives me something to look forward to. I have certainly camped a few times on the first day of spring.

As previously noted, next Wednesday is Bubble Bath Day 🧼 when the sun will be setting at 4:40 pm with dusk at 5:11 pm. On that day in 2019, we had cloudy, mild, rain showers and temperatures between 41 and 29 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 60 back in 2008.

December 16, 2019 Morning

Good morning! Happy Tea Party Day 🐍! I should wear my Don’t Tread on Me shirt 👚, that is after work. I’ve always kind of admired them a bit for giving the Finger 👆to the British. Yeah, many of the original tea partiers were puritanical religious bigots ✝ against the Quakers who would be eventually run off to the Quaker State, besides being angry about the excessive taxes and regulations on the American frontier. 🐺 Next Monday is Festivus 🍖. The holiday for the rest of us, including those who prefer coffee ☕ to tea on the morning. I like it good and strong 💪 in my perculator pot. 💭 That said I recommend separating out your coffee grounds and tea bags and composting the source separated organic waste 🐽, the S-SOW as the guberment likes to say. Plus if you burn it 🔥 coffee grounds don’t burn well — better to fertilize the fields and the garden.

This morning mostly cloudy and 26 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. There are 0.5 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ But we are getting a few more inches on Tuesday of nuisance snow ⛄. ️Things will start to thaw out at around noontime. 🌡️

It looks like I am going to be into work late today. 🚌 It just was a few too minutes late to make the walk down to the express bus, and I missed the earlier local. The normal local I would take is running about 15 minutes late, so I’ll have to clock in late, ⏲ and then maybe stay a few minutes later in the evening — but I think I should still be able to catch the express bus as it normally isn’t to State and Swan until 5:14 PM.

The one neat thing is I guess I won some of the paintings at the Save the Pine Bush Raffle 🦋, so I’ll have some Christmas presents to give away. 🖼 I didn’t think much of it — I just bought a bunch of raffle tickets to support Save the Pine Bush. Honestly, I ended up spending less money then I expected at the Save the Pine Bush benefit, but maybe I’ll give a bigger check at the dinner on Wednesday night. Or send them in a check. Tonight I have another Save the Pine Bush meeting to go to.👪

Today will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 33 degrees at 1pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 23rd. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming light and variable in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became light drizzle by afternoon. The high last year was 36 degrees. The record high of 55 was set in 1971. 9.5 inches of snow fell back in 1981.❄

The sun will set at 4:22 pm with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 16 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 31 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 26 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will snow likely, mainly after 4am. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a low of 23 degrees at 3am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 12th. Maximum wind chill around 23 at 6pm; Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. In 2018, we had light rain in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 30 degrees. The record low of -8 occurred back in 1942.

So yeah, the Boston Tea Party 🍵 happened today in Boston 1773 and would lead to the Intolerable Acts and ultimately the American Revolution. 🐍 They dumped a bunch of over taxed nasty Indian Tea into the Boston Harbor ⚓ and said to the world 🌍 we are going to grow our own. 🌽🍎🍄🐷🐮 I have a lot of respect for their individualistic spirit. And it’s not like pig shit 💩 is going to ruin our environment.

Honestly, I do agree strongly with the tea partierers that jack-booted thugs 🐍 are the greatest threat to our liberty, and we spend too much money on the war department and the police — and we worship them like they’re God and not government bureaucrats enforcing often unjust and bigoted laws. 👮 If we had fewer laws, we’d all be better off. When I own my own land, I want the government to stay off it, let me burn whatever I want, shoot my guns, farm and slaughter my own animals. 🐔🐖🐐🔫 You do your thing, I’ll do mine.

Today in 1965, the Vietnam War would escalate. General William Westmoreland sends U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara a request for 243,000 more men by the end of 1966. 💣And in Cleveland, Ohio becomes the first major American city to default on its financial obligations since the Great Depression in 1977 💰with Mayor Kunich at the helm. He was quite the flash in the pan when he ran for president a few times as a peace ✌ candidate by the you haven’t heard much from him lately. I think I might have even voted for him one or two times. ❎ A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late.

Cloudy oh so cloudy weekend ahead before Christmas. ☁ Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 31. Sunday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 37. Typical average high for the weekend is 34 degrees. My hopes off getting up to the Adirondacks after the Pine Bush Hike seem increasingly dashed. 🗻 But the forecast could change by then and if it doesn’t happen I am still going to the Finger Lakes National Forest in two weeks. ⛺

Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Make Your Dream Come True Day 🏡 when the sun will be setting at 4:44 pm with dusk at 5:15 pm. On that day in 2019, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 23 and 10 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 71 back in 1932.

Wisconsin for living

Another state I’ve considered moving to would be Wisconsin. It’s a big state with vast rural areas, famous for its dairy industry and the sand hills that Aldo Leopold once wrote the Sand County Almanac about. It’s also home to the Blue Karner Blue Butterfly, similar to the Albany Pine Bush.

It’s vast fertile lands, such as the sand hills once fertilized by prarie grasses and now by manure and nitrogen fixing alfalfa and soybeans are great both for milk production and for deer, turkey, migratory birds, beaver and wildlife for hunting, trapping and observation. Northern Wisconsin has vast forests, a large portion that are federally owned and available for a wide variety of recreational pursuits.

Wisconsin is cold and snowy a big portion of the year and is part of the rust belt. There is a lot of salt on the roads but at least they are fairly quickly cleaned in the winter. If I had a good wood stove and a small well insulated off grid cabin it wouldn’t be a big deal. Hills in Wisconsin are relatively small and roads relatively straight so icy roads are less of a problem – although the rust belt still means throwing away cars regularly – even though they don’t rust the way they once did.

Wisconsin has its urban population centers and an under-girding of progressive politics but it’s also a very conservative state – much more than Minnesota to its west. Gun laws seem reasonable maybe not as permissive as some of the western states.

That said that in deep rural Wisconsin, your unlikely to be looked down upon for being a gun owner. Farmers aren’t likely to care if you hang a deer out back or process your own meat hung from a tree or work on your own car in your backyard. Raise a hog, goats, chickens or bull calves, and thru aren’t going to care – they’re in the same business. Code regulations are less in farm country, bonfires and household trash burning allowed. Dairies can be a cheap source of bull calves to raise for food or even fertilizer for the garden. And good farm stand produce like sweet corn in the summer. I’d probably choose a property that is more upland and less desirable for farming, just because it’s cheaper but I would have no problem living next to a farmer’s pasture or corn field.

Wisconsin at the state level officially forbids open burning of your household trash but most rural towns are much more permissive – many actually encourage residents to have burn barrels for non-recyclable trash to reduce disposal costs and landfill reliance. In dairy country that is spread out, I doubt most farmers give a damn about your fires as long as you don’t set their fields with valuable crops on fire. Many farms burn their own household trash along with net wrap, silage wrap and bags that corn seed and other feed comes in. Better than sending it all to the landfill as is the norm in New York – and saves a lot of money over having a dumpster.

Living in area near fertile dairy country can have it smells during part of year – early spring and late fall as manure is applied to the ground and a earthy smell as a ground is broken. Storage, use and disposal of spoiled silage can be real pungent too, although freshly chopped corn is wonderful. Especially with more modern controlled methods of liquid spreading used on larger, more modern farms which apply more carefully but in a pungent way. But I don’t care that much about the smell – my neighbors growing up raised hogs and the town I went to Boy Scouts in is famous for their milk production and the cow smell that goes along. Flies can also be a concern in farm country, especially during certain times of year after manure is applied or near barns themselves.

Zoning and codes varies a lot from town to town in Wisconsin and are an important consideration especially if I want to have an off grid property. Even though I don’t plan on doing a lot of building on my own land I don’t want to be tied down by a lot of red tape for minor upgrades when I follow code reasonably close. I want to be able to work with the town inspector do what needs to be done for as simple and minimalist structure as possible. Small towns usually are a lot easier to talk to and meet face to face with government officials.

Is Wisconsin my next home? Probably not but it’s a possibility on the list of many I’ve explored in recent years on the blog. Here are some of the previous posts I wrote:

October 19, 2019 Night

Good evening! Mostly clear and 36 degrees in Dormansville, NY. 🌃 Lots of stars above. Calm wind. I have a small fire 🔥 out back at my parents house, tiny compared to my neighbors fire and I’m sitting by the heater. It’s getting a bit chilly and I’m tired as I stayed up late last night so I don’t know how late I’ll stay up tonight. 🐶 Dog is snuggling close on this cold night.

Camping at my parents house remind me a lot of camping at one of the state forest campgrounds ⛺, they’re usually not packed but it’s not the wilderness experience where you can listen to music as loud as you want 🎶, burn whatever suits you in a big ass fire 🔥. Maybe next weekend depends on the weather. Looks though like it might be rainy ☔ next weekend.

Tonight will have patchy frost after 4am. Otherwise, mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 35 degrees at 5am. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 31st. Calm wind. Not super cold for Dormansville this time of year. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 46 degrees. The record low of 18 occurred back in 1972.

It was a nice day but a busy one. ☺ Hiking at Pebbles Island was fun as was the Pine Bush.🍂 Really good color in the Pine Bush and decent color in Pebbles Island. Walking for David Bissember was good too. Nice to have a busy Saturday, I think tomorrow will be fairly quiet as the forecast isn’t that great.🌦

It was nice hiking at Peebles Island this afternoon, but it was crowded there and hardly a wilderness experience.🚽Worst of all was I kind of had to go pee and the bathrooms were all locked — one is a seasonal bathroom and visitor center was cloesd on a Saturday. They really should have some kind of outhouse — maybe I should have walked over to Waterford to the canal center, but I was able to hold it until I got home.🙄

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 54% illuminated with the moon rising at 10:08 pm. The moon will set at 1:45 pm. The Last Quarter Moon will be tomorrow with partly cloudy skies. The Beaver Moon 🌝 is on Monday, November 11th. The sun will rise at 7:13 am with the first light at 6:45 am, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 13 hours and 6 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 45 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a slight chance of rain between 11am and 3pm. Patchy frost before 9am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy 🌧, with a high of 53 degrees at 2pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 2nd. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 62 degrees. The record high of 80 was set in 1965. There was a dusting of snow in 1952.

I’m not sure if I will end up going to the Catskills for a hike tomorrow if it looks like the skies will be gray. ☁ I might just spend Sunday camping at my parents house while their on vacation. And maybe some rain?💦 Hopefully not too much, I’d rather spend some more time outside then inside.

This evening I found an enormous tick on my stomach. 🐜 I pulled it with a tick key and hopefully it won’t become infected. I think I probably picked it up Friday night gathering wood for my fire out back at my parents house but it could be from the hike in the Pine Bush or the Pebbles Island State Park hike. Hopefully I won’t get Lyme.

The earliest models for next week don’t look real nice 💦but things could change. If the weather is nice I may take a long weekend to camp, hike and hunt. I’m thinking about Stoney Brook Campground in Morrisville / Nelson but I could consider the Adirondacks too. 🗻 A real campfire in the wilderness would be nice.

In four weeks on November 16 the sun will be setting at 4:33 pm (Standard Time),🌄 which is one hour, 35 minutes and 5 seconds earlier then tonight. It’s always very early with the sunset when the time changes. . In 2018 on that day, we had snow, mostly cloudy and temperatures between 40 and 26 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 48 and 32 degrees. The record high of 71 degrees was set back in 2006.

Longer nights in the wilderness 🌲mean I have to plan appropriately but with my bigger battery 🔋 set up at the solar shouldn’t be bad and the heater should keep me warm 🔱 at night especially f I hot tent. Bed comes earlier in the winter earlier so I can enjoy the sunshine during the limited hours of day and it’s nice relaxing in a warm tent after being out in the cold.

Looking ahead, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 6 weeks, First Day of Winter ☃️ is in 9 weeks, 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 10 weeks, Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯 is in 13 weeks, National Pie Day 🍰 is in 3 months and 5 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 14 weeks.

October 14, 2019 Morning

Good morning! Happy Columbus Day 🛥️! For me it means the second half of the trip back home 🏡 from West Virginia and getting unpacked. Two weeks to Average High is 55 🍂. Mostly sunny and 46 degrees at the Mount Pisgah County Park. There is a southwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃.

I was up at 6:15 am this morning, 🌄as I had chilli last night and too much beer 🍻 and had to visit the outhouse early on. 💩 Being I was in a campground it was a short walk but at least I got things taken down early and I’m stopping at the Mount Pisgah County Park for a bit.

Columbus Day will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 56 degrees at 1pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 25th. West wind 7 to 13 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 59 degrees. The record high of 81 was set in 1920.

So the October Road Trip is almost over. Just have to make it home safely and unpack. Then out to the folks house. It was a good trip although not the one I had originally planned. 🚙 The burn ban made me alter my plans and for a while I wasn’t planning on going to West Virginia. 📛 Time marches on, that’s all I can say.

But I did and spent three nights there before overnighting in County Bridge Campground outside of Troy, Penna last night. Only night in a developed campground. We other sites were taken but none nearby and it was very quiet there. Nice thing about the developed area is no bucket shitter 💩 to empty and bury the poop, and I don’t have to take down my table so a faster take down this morning.

Dash cam 🎥 didn’t record for part of the trip back but I didn’t have all that much great to save. I did get some nice clips to post on the blog later this week. Stay tuned!

The sun will set at 6:27 pm with dusk around 6:55 pm, which is one minute and 36 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 50 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 9 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 9 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 44 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have patchy frost after 5am. Otherwise, partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 35 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 31st. West wind 5 to 7 mph. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 39 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1978.

I could have done the New River Gorge and spent the balance of my trip in West Virginia 😔 but it seemed like the burn ban was going to be in place for most of the week. Sure I have the propane heater and electric lights 🚥 💡 but there is something about having a fire each night, if only a small fire is o provide some entertainment and company and take care of the burn trash. 🔥 So many wet wipes to get rid of when you are using them as your primary way to clean up your body. Maybe I should have stuck to the original plan but the Allegheny National Forest was neat as was visiting Pennsylvania High Point, Cook Forest and Hoye-Crest in Maryland.

It wasn’t a bad night, and it’s a convient place to stay at between Albany and West Virginia, ⛺ about half way between the two places at least if your like me and want to stay some place relatively quiet and cheap, while limiting driving to 4 hours a day, leaving the remaining time to visit parks or hop on back roads. That said, I’d prefer to camp somewhere I can gather up my own wood, listen to music 🎶 as loud as I want, not have to worry about bothering anyone with the smoke. At least I could have a decent fire 🔥 because I had some leftover wood from Stewart’s that I bought for the trip down and I used the Big Buddy Hester to keep my chair comfortable. Cold enough I wish I could have hot tented but I wasn’t going to pitch a tent for one night. It was fine under the covers.

I thought the Cannan Refuge was a disappointment but maybe the second seven miles down the rough dirt road would have been better. 🐦 The part I explored was the standard mixed forest, nothing much better than the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center I walk 🚶 to from home. At any rate, I was expecting something more marshy and full of birds like Montezuma. But it’s just not that kind of area. Moreover, the weather wasn’t all that great compared to the original forecast for yesterday.

Stopped at the Blue Knob State Park. 🗻 Kind of dead this time of year with the ski resort closed. And it was a rather gray day which sort of blocked the view and made it harder to see from the summit. I wonder if Blue Knob is the second highest peak in Pennsylvania. Nice country driving through Imler and surrounding lands. Good farmland, big dairies 🐄 around there.

Most of the drive up through Pennsylvania was fairly overcast and not real nice. ☁ The colors weren’t very good either. Passed some nice farm country in Pennsylvania. Mostly dairy 🐮 but some hogs 🐽, chickens 🐔, sheep 🐑 etc. Grains like corn 🌽 and soybeans too 🌾. Lots of Amish and Menonites along PA 26 and the Nittany Valley farming. I get not owning a car or living off grid but having no solar seems a bit extreme. But I guess if you can’t make it yourself, you shouldn’t own it. 🚜 I do have a lot of respect for the Amish even if their environmental record is a bit mixed. They do use some technology like silage wrap on their farms – which being Pennsylvania I’m sure is burned when discarded.

Driving 🚘 up through Pennsylvania I can assure still plenty of rural households and farms in Pennsylvania that burn virtually everything – you could see the black smoke, the piles of burnt cans and glass and ash in folks backyards and bags of trash next to the burn barrel waiting to be torched. 🔥 I didn’t have to go far in Pennsylvania to see the first pile of junk people were burning in their driveway. Wood with other goodies in that fire. Also saw some one burning trash in Maryland too and a few rural houses in West Virginia with burn barrels out back. Beats the landfill in my view, despite the sometimes stench 👃, although I think I would seperate out the cans and glass for recycling ♻ when I own my own land – and maybe build some kind of better incinerator than the common burn barrel most folks use. 👍 I can tell you as a fact there isn’t much burn trash I’m taking home from camp. Seems like a waste especially of the tin cans to throw the metal away – and it’s not like they burn or help the fire at all.

I decided to get off Interstate 99 at PA 414 through Liberty, Penna🗽 . Talk about a windy, narrow state highway in country that at worse was rolling. 🚙 I don’t understand why it’s such a bad road. Scenic yes, but hardly a good route to travel. At least not as bumpy and rough as River Road. But obnoxiously slow. I was having problems my phone not charging the whole time 📱, fortunately though I had enough power for Waze to direct me to destination.

I could go to West Virginia possibly next November but who knows. 😕 I might have to do a recount for work, and snow ⛄ is always a possibility like last year. I know I don’t want anything to do with West Virginia if snow and ice conditions are even a remote possibility. No thanks for sure. 2021 if I decide to go back, it might be a a very different experience if I decide to go car-less that year and have to rent a car. 🚙 It might be fun to see West Virginia in a rented car especially a hybrid electric car on those hills. Wouldn’t have to be as gentle on the rough roads either. Always worry about breaking Big Red down there. Another possibility would be a trip – probably by plane ✈ and rental car to see Missouri and the Midwest that year.

The past two nights have been bright 🔆 with the moonlight 🌕. Woke up Saturday night hot tent camping to take a piss in West Virginia and the inside of the tent was bright from the moonlight. Bitterly cold Sunday morning – I woke up and it was 26 degrees out. But after turning the Big Buddy heater on things he warned up quickly.

It was a good trip and generally came below budget 💸as I spent less time in West Virginia then originally expected. The bad weather ☔ a few days meant I drank more beer 🍻 then originally planned but I drove fewer miles ⛽ even when you consider I started my week in the Allegheny National Forest. 🌲Only spent one night in a campground, keeping those expenses lower and my food expenses were only slightly higher than normal – and I have left overs for future weeks to eat. Wet wipes, paper plates and towels, plastic forks, 🍴 etc too – seems like a waste to use once and burn 🔥 but when camping water 💦 is a precious commodity and its nice to stay clean as possible.

Tomorrow is a pay day 👍and it’s a three paycheck month so by the time the November credit card 💳 bill is due with the brake job on my truck and vacation expenses I’ll hopefully have my fund balance rebuilt. I can return some of the unspent cash to the bank.💰 I really needed to get away from Albany for a bit, go to some places much culturally and socially different from Albany. Despite the tight finances, I’m still sticking to my savings and investing plan. Travel and camping expenses will decline come winter but eventually I’ll be paying for heat 🔥 again but so it goes. I want to do some winter camping but the conditions have to be right and it won’t be an every day thing.

Definitely looking for a good shower when I get home. 🚿 It’s been ten days – Saturday October 5th since I’ve washed my full body. I’ve tried to keep as clean as possible but it’s hard when you are in the backcountry in October and you can’t really go for a swim 🏊 to clean your body. Did lots of hiking too ehic produces a lot of sweat. 😰

Generated and consumed a kilowatt of power through the solar panel over the past week. ☀ I wonder how much total power I consumed as I frequently used the alternator to top off accessory batteries. 🔋 Generally the system worked well. Once or twice the low voltage disconnect kicked in but that was one time due to a heavier load and one time in a dark morning in the cold pulling a decent load the voltage ⚡ dropped under the threshold. The sun rose, voltage increased and the load was automatically reconnected when safe. Driving 🚘 home I’m charging the laptop and running all accessory loads exclusively on the solar.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 56. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 61. Maximum dew point of 49 at 7pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 59 degrees. Should be great weather for the Save the Pine Bush hike! 🌲🌲🌲We are doing a walk down Rapp Road, it should be a nice one. Maybe fall foliage hike 🚶 on Sunday?

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Average High is 55 🍂 when the sun will be setting at 6:07 pm with dusk at 6:35 pm. On that day in 2018, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 51 and 41 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 55 degrees. We hit a record high of 78 back in 1971.

October 5, 2019 Night

Good evening! Partly clear and 50 degrees at the Allegany National Forest. There is a south-southeast breeze at 13 mph. 🍃. Chilly night, I’m glad I bought firewood for sure. I probably could have gathered wood but by the time I set up camp it was getting pretty dark.

Chilly night for sure. 🔥 Glad I have a fire. Regardless of where I stayed tonight I was going to be in Pennsylvania – if I had stuck to my original plan I would have camped at the County Bridge Campground but with my plans to stay in Pennsylvania multiple nights I drove all the way out to the Allegheny National Forest where I can have a campsite all to myself and not have to worry about making too much noise or smoke with my fire. ⛺ West Virginia via US 219 is still a possibility but first I’m going to wait out the rain at the Allegheny National Forest. Technically I can stay at this campsite all week, I could do that, I’m undecided. Going to take it one day at a time and make decisions come Monday. New River Gorge seems unlikely but maybe possible. I think they may have to wait until 2020 or 2021 but that’s just next year. So who knows! I could see doing my West Virginia trip in November 2020.

Tomorrow I’ll fine firewood for Sunday and Monday night. I fully expect the next two days to be fairly rainy and gray but so be it. I’ll probably pitch a tent tomorrow ⛺ so I can warm up next to the heater when it’s raining. Might go for a drive tomorrow just to top off the batteries as I’m not expecting much solar through Monday.

Today was cold enough I left the truck alternator connected all day to the accessory batteries. 🔋 Didn’t smell any sulfurization and honestly the alternator dropped the voltage after several hours of driving. It never got above 55 degrees according to Big Red’s DIC. That said, I did drop the voltage low enough that the low voltage disconnect did kick in briefly so I ended up starting my truck briefly to restore the lights. 💡 I thought about installing a override again to the low voltage disconnect but that never happened. I removed the switch after my last wiring project with the truck.

It’s wasn’t a bad day but it’s an awful long drive from Albany to the Allegheny National Forest. It wasn’t a bd trip except for the part through Binghamton when there was just a lot of busy traffic although it was moving. I ended up stopping both in Cobleskill and Oneonta in search of mantels for the lantern 🏮 but ultimately I found them in Oneonta. They don’t sell them at every Walmart. In the future I’ll just have to plan ahead and order online. The lantern is still burning rather yellow – I think the generator tube in it that pressurizes the gas is clogged with dirt. I wonder if I can order the part online. I wish I had brought carburetor cleaner – I have some at home, if it continues to smoke and not burn real bright 🔆 I’ll have to look at that. I have such problems with camping gear getting plugged with dirt – propane lines and everything else it seems. That said, ever since I used the other type of filter with the propane heater it has been quite reliable and the stove is good since I replaced the burners. I do use my equipment a lot – but happiness for me is nights in the wilderness.

Such a long drive out here. 🚙 A swear after driving all day I start to get a bit delirious. 😜 I find my attention drifts away from driving. Fortunately in bum fuck Pennsylvania traffic is pretty light and cops 👮 are far between. At any rate I made it hear safely. If I had followed my original trip plan I would have cut two hours or more off today’s drive camping At County Bridge Campground, that ten dollar 💵 a night primative campground outside of Troy on the way to future Interstate 99 and ultimately West Virginia. But I don’t like staying at campgrounds, especially with others around as I like having fires and listening 👂 to music 🎶 that oths may not care to hear.. Wilderness camping is a blessed experience for sure. It’s not only free for the site use but is free 🆓 in the sense of freedom. Much like my off grid property some point in the future.

Tonight will have a chance of light rain after 5am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 49 degrees at 9pm. Six degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 23rd. South wind 13 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 47 degrees. The record low of 24 occurred back in 1965.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 63% illuminated with the moon setting at 11:43 pm. The moon will rise at 3:15 pm. The 🌕 is next Saturday with mostly clear skies. The sun will rise at 7:17 am with the first light at 6:49 am, which is one minute and 5 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 12 hours and 26 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 47 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of light rain before 10am, then showers after 10am. 🌦 High of 65 degrees at 4pm. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 1st. Maximum dew point of 57 at 5pm. 🏖️ South wind around 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 65 degrees. The record high of 90 was set in 1900. There was a dusting of snow in 1954.❄

Tomorrow I probably will string up a tarp and pitch the tent in preparation of the certain rain ☔. Ironically it looks like West Virginia might only get clouds ☁ and a few drops of rain rather than the soaking rain they need badly. 💦 But the Allegheny National Forest is due for a good soaker. But if that happens I’ll have the tent set up which will keep me dry with a good book 📙 to read. I got four of them out of the library on Friday. 📚 Even if it’s cold and pouring rain, hot tenting will be nice. As I previously said I’ll probably go for a short drive tomorrow – maybe just to Jake’s Rocks to bring up the voltage on the batteries 🔋 on the truck. Not expecting a lot of solar tomorrow.

Looking forward to a quiet day in the Allegheny Wilds tomorrow with a good book. 📚 Life has been so busy lately and the quiet tomorrow will be good, doing a bunch of cooking 🍳 on the camp stove. Life has been so crazy lately I’m looking forward to the quiet.

In four weeks on November 2 the sun will be setting at 6:09 pm,🌄 which is 42 minutes and 2 seconds earlier then tonight. I’m not sure what to think about November although some of my favorite camping trips happened then. In 2018 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 64 and 48 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 53 and 35 degrees. The record high of 82 degrees was set back in 1950.

Looking ahead, Northern Zone Regular Season 🦌 is in 2 weeks, Election Day 2019 🗳️ is a month away, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 8 weeks, Repeal of Prohibition Day 🍺 is in 2 months, First Day of Winter ☃️ is in 11 weeks, 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 12 weeks, Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯 is in 15 weeks and 5 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 16 weeks.

It’s almost eleven. While it’s nice sitting by the heater I should think about bed. 😴

July 25, 2019 Morning

Good morning! Happy Thursday. Well within the second half of vacation. Next Thursday is August 🌻. Next weekend after vacation if it’s hot I might go up to Piesco Powley Road as summer is rapidly running low. Mostly sunny and 63 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. Light breeze. The dew point is 51 degrees. Beautiful morning up here at Burnt Hill on the highest point between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. Cows are mooing in the distance. 🐮 I’m going to miss the Finger Lakes but it’s time to move on.

Today will have a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon. Mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 75 degrees at 4pm. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 8th. Maximum dew point of 57 at 6pm. Should be a real nice day. Calm wind becoming northwest 5 to 8 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. It was very sticky. The high last year was 84 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1963.

The first step for today is to visit the Sugar Hill Firetower 🗼 then head out west to maybe Letchworth State Park or maybe directly to camp in Allegany County. ⛺ I’m not really sure, depends on the time. Then Friday I’ll head out to Quaker Lake at Allegany State Park, overnight in the National Forest and then Saturday night camp outside of Wellsboro and explore the Pine Creek Gorge. Sunday I’ll head back home, stopping a few places along the way.

The sun will set at 8:34 pm with dusk around 9:06 pm, which is 58 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 71 degrees. The dew point will be 59 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 14 hours and 41 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 56 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 61 degrees at 4am. One degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around August 2nd. Maximum dew point of 59 at 8pm. Light and variable wind. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies. It was humid. It got down to 70 degrees. The record low of 46 occurred back in 1976.

On this day in 1965, Bob Dylan goes electric as he plugs in at the Newport Folk Festival, signaling a major change in folk and rock music. 🎶 The crowds boo and his. Not very respectful. In 1993, The Saint James Church massacre occurs in Kenilworth, Cape Town, South Africa. Liberals use it as an excuse to take away people’s gun rights in Australia, which weren’t protected by an active gun culture or second admendment like in America. Such a common story it seems, the second amendment is important come 2020.

It should be a pretty nice weekend to round out my vacation. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 80. Southwest wind 7 to 10 mph. Maximum dew point of 63 at 10am. Sunday, a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 81. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 65 at 5pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

As previously noted, next Thursday is August 🌻 when the sun will be setting at 8:26 pm with dusk at 8:58 pm. On that day in 2018, we had rain and temperatures between 80 and 70 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 82 degrees. We hit a record high of 101 back in 1933.

Andy Arthur.org

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