November 12, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Cold and clear under the Beaver Moon and 20 degrees in Delmar, NY. ❄ There is a west-northwest breeze at 14 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 7. There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Tomorrow will be the coldest day of week – possibly one of coldest mid November days ever – then finally it will start to thaw out at Thursday around 11 am. 🌡️ More seasonable weather come Friday then cold Saturday for the Green Energy Fair ⚡. But that’s where I’ll be.

Finally feeling mostly better 🙂 I have had a ton of energy. After being sick for three weeks I have enough energy I’m bouncing off the walls. 🚶 I’m totally ready for a fifty mile hike, I did my evening walk in the cold and it was a pleasure. I also rode the excerise bike 🚲 for an hour and half listening to music and watching random YouTube videos I downloaded. 📹 Also worked on some new maps and blog posts 🌐 for the blog.

It’s going to be a very cold night 🌃 for mid November but it’s still pretty nice out. Not that cold by late December or even January into February. It’s not going to be 15 below with a negative 30 windchill as happens some time in winter. With that Big Beaver Moon 🎑 and the fresh snow ⛄on the landscape it’s a pretty beautiful night. It wouldn’t be a bad night for hot tenting or sitting although the breeze might add a bit of a chill to the air and blow the pilot light 🔥 out on the heater when sitting out next to it. I did leave the heat at 55 because I don’t like waking up for work when it’s too cold. Guilty pleasure. 😹 I just wish on cold nights like this I had that cabin with a wood stove where I could be truly warm.

Tonight will have isolated snow showers before 2am. Partly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 10 degrees at 6am. 22 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -1 at 3am; Northwest wind around 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 32 degrees. We will likely smash the record low of 13 that occurred back in 1981.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 97% illuminated. The moon will set at 7:35 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Monday night with increasing clouds. The Cold Moon 🌝 is on Wednesday, December 11th. The sun will rise at 6:42 am with the first light at 6:12 am, which is one minute and 15 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 8 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 17 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 27 degrees at 1pm. 22 degrees below normal. Northwest wind 7 to 13 mph. Days like this are uncommon in November, especially mid month. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 44 degrees. The record high of 69 was set in 1964. 6.0 inches of snow fell back in 1886.❄

Got listening to Christmas music 🎶 and thinking about the season 🎄 – especially winter camping with the lights, the music and the hot coca ☕ next to a big roaring fire 🔥. Gotta love 😍 Mitch Miller! Been a long time since I’ve spent much time in the woods but with the cold pattern expected to be breaking down and with my energy restored after being sick I’m ready for some good late November or early December nights in the wilderness. I might even take an extended weekend out to the Finger Lakes come late December like I did last year to winter camp in the National Forest. ⛺

In four weeks on December 10 the sun will be setting at 4:21 pm,🌄 which is 14 minutes and 8 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had partly sunny, mist and temperatures between 36 and 18 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 38 and 23 degrees. The record high of 64 degrees was set back in 1966.

Looking ahead, 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ is in 4 weeks, Christmas Eve 🎅 is in 6 weeks, New Years Eve 🎆 is in 7 weeks, Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 is in 9 weeks and Martin Luther King Day 🖤 is in 10 weeks.

Lower Falls from Bridge Trail

Hike 50 miles, Mr. President

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I think the president would be a lot more popular if he got off Twitter and went for a fifty mile hike to Harper’s Ferry… 🚶

It worked well for John Kennedy and inspired millions to go hiking and improve their health. Fifty mile hikes apparently were a big thing in 1963. I’ve only done a twenty mile hike myself but if the president does 50 miles, I’ll follow his lead.

Pack Your Bags.

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Pack your bags 👜 …

Tonight I fully expect the county legislature to adopt the 5 cent paper bag fee 🦆 as part of their post-Election Day lame duck session. For many of legislators — they truly are lame ducks — many long-standing progressive legislators are packing their bags. Many good people, some of them I worked on their campaigns not all that long ago. I don’t agree with every single issue, but it will be sad to see them go. I decided not to offer spoken public comment but I thought I’d write another blog post about it.

I am really not happy with the paper bag fee. 😤 While I always thought the plastic bag ban was kind of silly, after seeing how many litter the trees and the woods, I’ve largely come around. I’ve had plastic bags blow out of car windows, I’ve chased them blowing out of camp. They don’t really rot, they just get tangled further up in trees and in the woods. The low-value plastic market has collapsed with low oil prices and the China recycling embargo — probably most of the bags aren’t actually getting recycled. Though are an incredibly tiny source of solid waste from households compared to all the packaging that food and household supplies come in.

I don’t really see the big deal about paper bags. 🌲 As several months back when I wrote to my county legislator, I noted paper bags rot and don’t get caught in trees. They can be recycled with mixed paper, used for storing food waste for compost, or used as a fire starter in the wood-stove. They support healthy forests and help promote high prices for timber products, stimulating the market for more sustainable forests — and many contain recycled paper to boot. Paper bags are good for collecting paper for recycling too, especially if more places go back to dual stream recycling, which produces cleaner waste that is more salable.

I used to use reusable bags a lot more years ago, 🔥 but I got out of the habitat after they got worn, dirty, or I never had enough of them on hand when I was at the store. As I don’t drive every day, I often get home, shut-off the truck from my weekly shop, bring in the groceries, and don’t bother to bring them back out to my truck. Sometimes I’ll stop at the store mid-week on bus ride home to buy groceries. So I don’t always have the bags with me. But I guess I will have them with me more now. Plus, in the summer months, I always liked having the plastic bags to use for daily camp garbage and hauling supplies at camp — I can assure very little of them ever found their way into any landfill.

That said, I think the paper bag ban is kind of horseshit. 💩 I am not paying 5 cents to donate to the politicians so they can give out reusable bags at patronage events to their loyal supporters and while asking for votes in the upcoming elections. I will make the greenies happy, and bring my reusable bag!!! I actually have two set aside specifically for this use when the new law goes into effect. When I’m out shopping in freer counties without the surcharge, I’ll probably take advantage of the free paper bags. They’re versatile for re-use.

In the grand scheme of things, shopping bag bans are pretty silly. 🌎 The amount of waste in the shopping bags is much greater then the bags themselves. When I own land in a freer state, I’ll probably keep the reusable bags for hauling library books or other supplies, and go back to the disposable ones. The Earth, my land, and the old burn barrel out back off my off grid cabin, ain’t going to care one way or another if I leave the reusable bag home. That said, I’ll be pissed if roadside litter finds it way into my trees, or is eaten my livestock.

Regular Car Reviews

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We set sail in this nearly 5,000 lb Chrysler Imperial. A leading luxury car of the pre-smog era of American Motoring.

I like big cars and can not lie about that fact.