Scattered Thoughts . . .

As expected, April's weather forecast has changed.  Unfortunately, it has not changed in the way we need.  Now, rather than there being only three clear days forecast for April, there are zero clear days in all of April!   It is not looking good for any sort of astronomy in April.   Of course, we could get extremely lucky and get a few hours of clear skies in the early afternoon of the eighth...  from 2pm to 4:30pm...  I'm not holding my breath though.

I 've been keeping an eye on the extended weather forecast since we're hoping to be able to view the solar eclipse in April.   As expected, the forecast is not looking good for any sort of astronomy around the 8th of April.  I'm not surprised in the least because this is typical for our neck of the woods at this time of year but I am a bit disappointed. Of the 30 days in April, it appears as though only three days might be suitable for astronomy...  the 13th, 15th and 16th.   The forecast is showing it will likely be -Clear- on these days but just because the skies are clear doesn't mean the skies will be steady for astronomy.  Of course astronomy is completely dependent upon a cloudless sky...  we can't magically see through clouds but astronomy is also severely affected by air currents and convection currents as well as clouds that are not in the visible spectrum.  Clouds in the infrared spectrum can also negatively impact the quality of the skies for astronomy. 

T he past few nights have been frigid in the sub-zero range but the days haven't been too bad...  until today, that is...   Fortunately, we have no need to be outside today.  I think we have some significant snow headed our way tomorrow night so we'll need to be outside on Monday to move snow and rake the roof so hopefully the weather will warm up a bit into the teens or 20s by then.

No matter where I have lived across the country, the weather has always been known to change wildly within a day or even hours.  Even though it is not so uncommon, it is worth mentioning when it does occur.   Last week started out a bit on the cold side which was really average temperatures for this time of year.  Then, on Monday, we had a little bit of a snowstorm that dumped about eight inches of wet, heavy snow on us.   I didn't bother trying to start the snowblower since we have not been leaving the house anyway but I did need to rake the roof and do some shoveling.  The snow was deep and it was heavy so it was a necessity to remove it from the roof.  I knew that it would only get heavier as it melted on the roof and eight inches of snow is a lot of snow.   I wasn't too thrilled about needing to rake the roof so early in the season.  Even a healthy person wouldn't be too thrilled about needing to rake the roof but my spinal injuries take a big hit whenever I need to mov

Our new weather station. We've had a weather station here in the house ever since I've lived here. Actually, when I moved in with Sheila, I brought my weather station at the time with me to Sheila's house.  Every few years, better weather stations at more affordable prices are manufactured so we've upgrade to newer models every five years or so. The weather station we've had for the past four or five years was okay but it was difficult to read in our hallway. We have a small area in our hallway just outside our kitchen where we have the house controls... our thermostat, our telephone/intercom base unit (yes, we still have a landline-based VOIP telephone system... two line... two remote handsets... because cell service is spotty, almost non-existent in our neck of the woods not to mention obscenely expensive) ... the weather station...  and this area is adjacent to our half bath and laundry room. It is just a nice common area of the house in close proximity

It has been very Spring-like through December this year. We occasionally had some snow flurries but it was so warm during the days each day that we had some flowers blooming in our wildflower gardens as Christmas approached! As of last night, our temperatures have dipped down into the single digits and today promises wind chills below zero. And, we even had a bit of snow yesterday!  I think winter has arrived! My health was not feeling well enough to wander outside last night but I did manage to get a few photos from inside our house through the windows. Before it is time to turn off the Christmas lights, I'll need to get outside with a camera so get more shots...

All these delays in our home renovations has really snowballed at this point. My health and the weather were nowhere near in sync and, as a result, so many projects were delayed. Whenever the weather was good, my health was miserable so I could not accomplish anything. Whenever my health was well enough to accomplish a few things, the weather was so lousy that we couldn't get anything accomplished.  Now, the temperatures are below freezing every night and not much higher than freezing during the days. These cold temperatures makes finish work such as staining and polyurethaning impossible to do outdoors.  Unfortunately, I have a lot of wood to stain and polyurethane. Since I can't move all this wood outdoors, I am stuck trying to get it all stained and polyurethaned indoors without ruining our floors, walls, furniture, etc. This means I am stuck inside the small room I am currently renovating. I started staining wood today... I managed to stain half of the wide planks f

Today, we finally saw some weather which is typical for May...  a high in the upper 70s to low 80s... sunny... basically, a really nice late spring day. Fortunately, my health was relatively stable today so I was able to take advantage of this nice weather and get a few things accomplished. Whenever a relatively good health day presents itself, I need to take advantage of it! These days are certainly rarer than poor health days. I cut the lawn for the first time this year today... and, wow, what a difference in how clean the yard looks! Although we had a rather snowy winter, this spring has been exceptionally dry so, while I was cutting the lawn today, I was in a constant cloud of dirt. The conditions reminded me of the driest of Augusts which is the usual period of the year when we have the driest of weather. This is quite unusual for May! Regardless of the dry weather, today was a beautiful day and I managed to have a very productive day. After cutting the lawn, I did some much