Every morning I get the Morning Ag Clips newsletter delivered to my email box a little after 3 am. Who is up at that hour? Dairymen, nearly two hours before I wake up and get cooking and a jump on my day. After all, you gotta strip the teats before you milk the laddies so I can have cottage cheese with my eggs and milk in my coffee.

Good morning! What day is it? Hump Day, of course. Rain and 43 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a west-southwest breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. There are 3 inches of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Still too much snow to ride the bike into work on the rail trail, but regardless it’s still raining. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 2 am. ☃️

I slept in late until 5:10 AM this morning, which really is about ten minutes later but I don’t set an alarm clock ⏰  so I get up when I wake naturally. I was in bed by 9 PM last night 🛌 so eight hours later is about 5 AM though I woke briefly at 3 AM when I heard the Morning Ag Clips come in but I didn’t read until I was up and out of bed, loading the oven with bread and taking the seeds out of the spaghetti squash, getting it ready to cook. A good nights sleep, despite the warnings of high wind and severe weather, all I heard was a bit of rain on the roof.

Woke up feeling a bit achy this morning from the rain, 😫 but I got some onions, spinach, corn, peppers eggs frying 🍳 with a bunch of turmeric, red chili pepper, and salt. Then coffee with lots of ginger and cinnamon. ☕ Feeling good now. Baked up some rye bread, with lots of dill weed and chopped red onions. I find for a good crispy crust, adding some baking soda helps. The red onions give it a dark, rich texture, almost like pumpernickel. Also cooked up a big pot of 15-bean Cajun soup, but then I added a bunch of corn, celery, carrots and spinach to beef up the soup. Will be good with the rye bread later. To keep the oven full, also made spaghetti squash. Using up a lot of stuff in my pantry but I’ll go shopping either Thursday or Friday night, or maybe early Saturday morning.

Today will have a chance of showers, mainly between 11am and 3pm. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 44 degrees at 12pm. 11 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 12th. I like mid March weather in January. Breezy, with a southwest wind 7 to 12 mph increasing to 16 to 21 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 41 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 55 was set in 2016. 7.3 inches of snow fell back in 1984.❄

I wasn’t going to ride my bike to work, 🚲 until I decided to do just that. I will take Delaware Avenue in I guess, because I think there is still snow and ice on the rail trail ❄️ though I’d much rather take the rail trail and avoid traffic. 🚂 When I switch to the office in North Albany — maybe next week — if the rail trail is closed, I will take Second Avenue. I think there is less traffic there, and less risk of getting doored, 💥which scares me as much if not more then getting rear-ended on the bicycle. Riding on Delaware Avenue, it’s constant looking ahead and looking backwards, compared to the relatively easy to ride down the rail trail. 🚵‍♀️ Once I’m fully moved the suburban office, I will be able to take Albany County Rail Trail to Corning Preserve, almost entirely off the road, then it will be an easy ride up Erie Bouelvard, through the old Lumber District.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:03 pm with sun having an altitude of 25.4° from the due south horizon (-45.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 12.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:57 pm with the sun in the southwest (233°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (240°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:41 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 21 seconds with dusk around 5:12 pm, which is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:48 pm. At sunset, look for rain showers around 🌧 and temperatures around 40 degrees. Breezy, 21 mph breeze ⛅ from the west-southwest with gusts up to 41mph. Today will have 9 hours and 19 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 19 seconds over yesterday.

I was pleasantly surprised that the blueberry pancakes I made yesterday 🥞 didn’t cause me to have a blood sugar spike that I was afraid it would. Maybe it was because the pancakes were whole-wheat flour and some milled oats and made myself without added sugar or even bananas. Maybe using pure maple syrup 🍁 in moderation helped. I do love the sweetness of blueberries 💙 but it can come with an hour or two down the clock feeling really hungry and even a bit dizzy. But I was reading that such blood sugar troughs aren’t that uncommon for many people, and isn’t a sign of anything more serious besides bad dietary choices. I was looking at my online health record, and two times I got my blood and urine tested, my blood sugar levels were in normal levels and I didn’t have any glucose in my urine. 🥤 I did have slightly elevated bile in my urine, a sign of some kidney damage probably back when I was more overweight, but I was barely outside of normal level, 👩‍⚕️ nothing my doctor said I should be concerned about. I am super paranoid about diabetes these days, as I watch and it slowly saps the life away from my parents who are growing older. And I don’t like needles. 💉

Tonight will be mostly cloudy ☁️, with a low of 29 degrees at 4am. 13 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 24th. Breezy, with a southwest wind 14 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. With that wind, I’ll probably need the heat again. ♨️  In 2023, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 19 degrees. The record low of -25 occurred back in 1968.

Last night was cold with the wind so I turned on both the gas heat down stairs and the space heater on as I was chilled through. 🌧 🌬 It was absolutely pouring when I was waiting out for the bus, and when I got home things were cold and damp. Cooking in the oven the salmon 🐟 things warmed up, and then I kneaded up the bread 🍞. Also made some corn mush mixed with peanut butter powder which was pretty good. And then shredded and orange and had that with a warm glass of milk with cinnamon and ginger before bed. Eating good. Wish I had gotten more steps in yesterday, but I did do that seven mile ride in during the morning.

Still looks like the weekend starts out rainy, but then gets cold for the balance of the M.L. King weekend. 🌦 Saturday, rain, mainly before 1pm. High near 48. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 31. Breezy. M.L.King Day will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 31. Typical average high for the weekend is 33 degrees. I am not sure if it looks good for getting out of town, thinking it will be a swamp on Saturday and then frigid come Sunday. Maybe just one night. Things could change though.

One month 📅 from now will be Clean Your Computer Day 🧹 when the sun will be setting at 5:21 pm with dusk at 5:49 pm. The average high temperature is 33 degrees, with a record high of 55 in 2016. Now that’s depressing on the mercury front, but let’s be honest, not much beyond there, things start to warm up once again as we head into the second half of February. 🌺 Spring will come eventually.