tamarack

It's always surprising how few SDDs you accumulate, given the snowfall. My 75.6" produced 1,319 SDDs, 98% of your total, despite having only 37% of the snowfall. Days 1"+: 128, 127 cons. Days with 10"+: 57, 43 cons. Days with 20"+: only 3, deepest 22" on Feb. 16.

Mostly sunny 11 AM on.

Only a sprinkle here. First Saturday w/o measurable precip since March 22. Still cool (50s) but clouds are looking thinner.

While I was waiting to undergo pre-op tests, I watched nurses helping a surgery patient practicing on stairs, almost certainly on the day after his operation. I anticipate going thru the same, as there's 8 steps to enter our place - fortunately has rails on both sides. Hazy sun here, will be cooler than yesterday's 74. Fantastic evening. Warm, slight breeze. A few birds still calling and fireflies starting to come out. First firefly sighting here was June 3 and by the 5th (high was 86 that day) we had lots.

Hope it will free up time for doing things you love to do. It will be 4 years next month for me. Unfortunately, the arthritic knees that helped convince me to pull the pin have degraded enough since 2023 to limit my activities. Most recent fishing was March of 2024; last 12+ month period without wetting a line came in 1951. Left knee is much the poorer and it's getting replaced on the 23rd. Right knee is holding up better.

That car looks worse than one from which Customs dismantled to find all of the 100kg of meth.

Other places in New England may have had worse weather this spring, but the season here was rainier and cloudier than my average (and only 50% of avg snow). More days with measurable precip, more with at least 1/2" - only the big rain days were lacking, as no day this year has reached 1".

We're all different, of course. I'm more tolerant of cold than are normal people, and have had friends say to me, "Please put on a jacket. I'm cold."

Exact opposite here - short sleeves all year when inside and no shorts as we're in the midst of tick-y forest. Purchased some shorts recently, but that's for all the PT work following my knee replacement surgery on 6/23. Checked radar about 8:20 to see if putting the recycling down the road to the pickup spot and saw almost nothing. 10 minutes after I'd taken the stuff down, little showers popped up and have continued to do so, with low 50s. Soggy cardboard for the loss.

Lone Star tick - makes red meats produce the sickening, not sure about poultry/seafood. I don't know if all LS tick bites cause the change or, like deer ticks, only a (probably large) fraction carry the causal organism.

In April as bare spots began to appear, some folks in the St. John Valley would snowblow the plow piles onto the paved road so it would be gone soonest. Drivers there learned to be cautious.

Deer tick nymphs can be the size of a poppy seed. Picked a much bigger one from my ear this morning - either the biggest deer tick I've seen or the first dog tick I've ID'ed here in 10+ years. (But small for the latter species.) Last night's moon was on the orange side of yellow - odd, but kinda pretty. Thanks, Canada.

Only 0.24" as the best area remained south and the northerly one was losing its punch by the time it reached our longitude. With last evening, however, almost an inch - decent.

Hordes of mosquitos here, but one of the lightest black fly seasons we've had. (At least here. Makes me wonder if it was another 1996. On Friday June 7 I spent 5 hours at Oquossuc (Rangeley) Bald Mountain helping scope out a new snowsled trail and saw maybe 10 black flies. The next Monday our men's wilderness retreat reached Portage Lake about noon, and it seemed there were 10 of them per cubic inch. At Deboullie (25 miles SW from Fort Kent) where we camped, Ben's 100 lasted barely an hour. I'd never seen flies so thick before, and haven't since. Tuesday it was 91 at Fort Kent and blazing; black flies usually retreat to the cool woods when it's much over 80, but not that year. Even on Deboullie Pond a hundred yards from shore, they were thick. Maybe insufficient airspace over the land? Only place to hide (other than a steam bath inside a tent) was NW from the pond in hollows amid the spruce forest/boulder garden which still held ice and snow.)

Light RA just arrived to start Act 2, though the bright echoes are back at the NH/ME boundary. Had 0.71" between 6 and 10:30 last night, perfect garden watering.

Might be able to see the base of the mountains, with tops in the clouds. Hope the wx at PEI is better.

If you're traveling on US RT 2, you'll get within a mile of my place, though it's 2 miles by road - from the blinker in New Sharon by Sandy River Farm Supply (one of the cheaper gas places in the area - $2.929 last I looked). Should be a nice ride up I-95, somewhat slower HUL to PQI. The pullout north from Medway has a great view of Katahdin, possibly compromised by smoke. (Maybe you've already been through there before and I'm not offering real news. )

Humidity has arrived. Last 3 days were 73/35, 78/44, 86/49 but today's low is about 60 and high maybe 75. Started planting last Monday and it turned dry, as usual. Had 2 TS do a 7-10 around me about 6 PM yesterday and today's southern Maine RA refuses to cross Rt 2. Forecast says we get the garden watered tomorrow.

Lilacs at peak here, though the amount of blooms is lower than usual.

Haven't checked the max-min, probably reached 86-87. Here in the woods, 85 is our heat wave threshold. Fortunately, I got the rest of the sled-trail firewood into the yard by 9:15 AM when it was still under 70.

Especially if one chooses to go back and forth. My father-in-law and I went up Hunt in August 1973. As he'd hiked his scout troop all over the AT in NNJ/SNY, the trail's northernmost 5 miles was the obvious route. He was willing to wait at the summit while I went to Pamola and back, 2.2 miles in 1:50. Next summer a co-worker and I climbed the Abol trail, shortest (and hottest!) way to the top. The lower half of the open slide section was moved into the woods some years back, but in 1974 we baked in the steep south aspect all the way. In October 1972 we visited Baxter and while my wife and 4-month-old son waited and enjoyed the scenery, I climbed about halfway up Helon Taylor, which runs from Roaring Brook to Pamola.

Where would that be, Gander NFLD? CAR's coolest July maximum is 54 on 7/1/88.

Many years ago (early 1950s?) Isaac Asimov wrote a SF short story about a future time when everyone had powerful pocket calculators, and no one knew how to do basic arithmetic. Then this mousy little man came to the "genius" leaders to show how to multiply and divide. The leaders were flabbergasted by this wonderful "invention" but soon worked to find ways to use it to enhance weaponry. The "inventor", totally disheartened, then committed suicide. Approaching 80 here under hazy sun, still reasonable dews. Probably will want to use the AC setting on the heat pump tomorrow. (That's the only reason we bought the thing.)

73/35 yesterday under blue skies. Moon had a yellowish tone last evening as the smoke arrived.

Clouds from yesterday's little band of showers stopped yesterday morning's coolness at 41. Cloud free so far today, skeeters, one horsefly-sized critter and ticks where I was picking up the fallen red maple that had blocked (then was cut from) the club trail thru our woodlot. The wood was about 100 feet, nearly half wet/mushy and the rest a rock garden, from the unmaintained but drivable road. A challenge for the aching knees - left one gets fixed (replacement) on 6/23.