June 22, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Partly clear and 56 degrees at Perkins Clearing Easement in the Adirondacks. 🌃 Stars are nice but there is still a fair amount of clouds around and despite the open skies a lot of light pollution from Speculator and Lake Pleasant which are only three or four miles away. There is a northwest breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 47 degrees. It actually is pretty cool when the breeze picks up. I have my hoodies and vest on, I might sit by the fire later again as it’s cool on the hammock but the stars ✨ are pretty above although how I have the laser light aimed it’s getting in my eyes from time to time and that’s annoying.

Tonight will have patchy fog after 3am. Otherwise, mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 47 degrees at 5am. 12 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 17th. Northwest wind around 8 mph. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1940.

Today was a fairly lazy day, spending several hours in the hammock after sleeping in this morning. 😴 I still can’t believe how much my lip swelled from the horse fly bite. 💋In an hour or so it was back to normal. Lots of horse flies and mosquitoes especially yesterday and a few black flies left. 🐜 Not a good time of the year if you’re sensetive to bug bites. Did a bunch of reading 📖 and hiked two miles each way on Jessup River Road to the river of the same day and fished. With the solar and two accessory batteries I prefer to avoid driving as much as possible while at camp both to save fuel and because then I don’t have to worry if I want to have a few drinks. 🍻

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 62% illuminated with the moon rising at 12:20 am. I’ll probably be asleep by then. The moon will set up a tomorrow at 11:10 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Monday night with a chance of t-storms then chance of showers. The Buck Moon 🌝 is on Monday, July 15th. Buck yeah. The sun will rise at 5:16 am with the first light at 4:41 am, which is 16 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 8 hours and 34 minutes of darkness, an increase of 8 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 75 degrees at 3pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around June 6th. Maximum dew point of 49 at 7am. Northwest wind 8 to 11 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 69 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1888.

I’m going to paddle the Sacandaga River tomorrow from Speculator down to the rapids past the Kujamunk. 🚤 That’s a nice paddle and do some fishing 🎣 and maybe swim 🏊 if it’s not too cold. I’m hoping the water won’t be too choppy with the wind, I’ll probably stay out of Lake Pleasant with the kayak. Then back to Albany to unpack and work on Monday although at least I won’t have to dress up and can take the express bus to work. 🚍

In four weeks on July 20 the sun will be setting at 8:32 pm,🌄 which is 10 minutes and 2 seconds earlier then tonight. That will be the first or second day of summer vacation most likely. In 2018 on that day, we had hot weather, sunny, patches of fog and temperatures between 88 and 57 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 83 and 62 degrees. The record high of 97 degrees was set back in 1991.

This past week the solar panel on my truck generated 500 watt hours of power or a half kilowatt hour. 🔋About 7 cents worth of electricity at home hooked to the grid. It would have generated more but the alternator topped off the batteries when driving and when there is no load on the system, the solar controller discards the excess power. 🔌 I probably could leave the accessory batteries disconnected from the alternator – maybe I’ll do that on the way home although with the kayak on the roof of the truck and the CB radio and phone pulling 15 watts off the battery that isn’t ideal.

Looking ahead, Hottest Time of the Year 😅 is in 3 weeks, Ugly Truck Day 🚚 is in 4 weeks, Average High Falls To 79 ️Degrees ⛱️️️ is in 9 weeks, Average High 70 🎑 is in 13 weeks and Autumn 🍂 is in 3 months.

East Canada Creek

Waiting for the stars

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Stars ✨ don’t become visible until late this time of year. 🌄 Sitting next to the campfire, listening to the crickets and Santo and Jeremy Sleep Walk (a song from summer 60 years ago) waiting for it to get dark enough to dim the lights further and look up at the millions of stars above. Hear an occasional owl screeching in the distance. 🌃

Lip horse fly fun

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I put DEET on my face and arms to avoid getting bit by horse flies. I fell asleep listening to a podcast. A horse fly bit my lower left lip which is now swollen. Can’t ducking win.

Why I Rent

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My rent is currently $675 for the apartment in suburbs I’ve lived in for almost 12 years now. That’s $8,100 a year which sounds like a lot of money going to waste (if you consider shelter a waste, which is probably better than being homeless) when I could buy a home but I actually think I come out ahead renting.

While it’s true that I’ll never get back the money I spent on rent, I’ll never get back a lot of money buying a house, especially with a mortgage and the high property taxes that are the norm of living in New York. Buying land and a property has all kinds of other sunk costs that I would never recover either – motor vehicle commutes, consumables like lawn mowers, water bills or even common repairs that add no actual value to the home. I’m quite happy living in the modest apartment I’ve had since I moved to Delmar, I don’t need more.

At some point I do want to move back to the country and have an off grid cabin but not in New York. It’s just too expensive with the taxes, the restrictions on open burning, the gun laws, all the taxes, fees and regulations. People across the country live in places far cheaper and freer than New York. But moving out to the country in a freer state means giving up my job, my family and even my community and the consistency of the suburb life served by public transportation.

As long as I live in New York, I’m quite content with a small apartment in the city on public transportation and saving the money I’m making with a low rent for a better tomorrow. While I doubt I’d want a larger building when I’m a landowner – smaller is cheaper to heat and clean – land is important so I can hobby farm, hunt, trap, have fires and burn whatever I want on my land.

Those days will come eventually even if for now I live modestly in my rented building, saving for a better tomorrow.

This Supreme Court Decision Should Worry the EPA and FDA

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This Supreme Court Decision Should Worry the EPA and FDA

Under existing law, vast discretion isn’t unconstitutional provided there’s an intelligible principle to guide it. The laws that delegate authority for regulation to the Environmental Protection Agency or the Food and Drug Administration confer that authority in extremely general terms — but express the goals of a cleaner environment and safer food and drugs

Yet Gorsuch argued that the very doctrine of the intelligible principle makes no sense, and “has no basis in the original meaning of the Constitution.” In his view, Congress can assign “essentially fact-finding responsibility” to the executive branch. But it can’t delegate “legislative power,” understood very roughly to mean the exercise of central policy-making judgment characterized by “unfettered discretion.”

I think this is a interesting court case to watch, as sometimes administrative agencies do abuse their power making public policy when that's the job of the  congress.