September 4th Last warm night of the season

Good morning everyone!

If you ventured outside at 5:30 a.m. today, you would have immediately noticed that you walked into a very warm night – it was in the 60’s! Then, you would have noticed two of our most beautiful winter constellations up above: the Pleiades, or the Seven Sisters; and Orion. It was very clear before dawn.

When the sun started rising, you would have then felt a gust of wind all around you – still warm – and if you looked up at the sky, you would have seen fragments of clouds starting to appear. These clouds grew in size, and eventually took over the sky – a bit later, at 6:30, the sky is almost completely overcast. A warm front moved in, but is actively clashing with a cold front to our West, meaning that a storm system is heading our way later today.

This was possibly the last night we had in the 60’s for 2019. Night temperatures should take a plunge from what they were today, to the upper 40’s later tonight, which is good if you love fall colors. We need chilly nights above freezing, but warm days in the 60’s or 70’s to bring us the best colors. Maples around us are already turning shades of red, and some trees have even lost their leaves! Most trees are holding onto their green leaves, as they should, because we are still far from our peak fall season.

The bedroom window, though it was open tonight, was closed for the first days of September, which was a change since it had been open every day since June. We were even allowed conceded to sleep in the bed, since we were cold! We think it won’t be much longer before the humans light a fire to warm our bellies.

Today is the first day of classes for many students around the US. Happy first day of school, students! We are confident you will make the world a better place with the time and effort you put into your growing knowledge and your growing hearts. We believe in you!

Luckily for me, I get to nap ALL DAY today!

Love,

Mack

September 3rd Hard work

Good morning everyone!

It would seem that fall IS here, and that our invaders cohabitants surely know winter is coming! Animal activity has increased in the last week, especially in the foraging area. Chickadees are gathering seeds, chipmunks are scurrying across the yard picking up our stray acorns (there are only a couple thousand left on the yard. . ) spiders are weaving invisible traps, and the animal world is preparing for the descent into the White and Cold World that is Winter around here.

My humans are scurrying an awful lot this morning, too. They have been working, yes, but INSIDE the house, and it seems like they are getting ready to work OUTSIDE the house now! Why else would I get a peanut-butter Kong first thing in the morning?!

It seems that hard work is the way of nature. My human asked me what MY job was. Well, I have the toughest job of all. I must test all food crumbs to see if they are poisoning my humans. I also protect them by charging at gusts of ferocious wind, our neighbors strolling down the street, and the occasional garter snake under the deck. Aside from protection, I am a comfort dog. I can reassure, cuddle, and snuggle my human back to physical and emotional warmth anytime of the day or night. I am handsomely repaid for my labor with a smattering of treats, ear scratches, and affirmations that I am a good boy, so I know that I am working hard.

So it’s not just you who are working, humans. Dogs work too!

Today’s temperature is 51 degrees F and the sky is clear. Hurricane Dorian is STILL over the Bahamas, now at a Category 3 hurricane, and moving veeery slowly. A couple cold fronts are pushing the precipitation away from into the Atlantic, but a gnarly occluded system is poised to enter the area in a couple of days.

Happy Post-Labor day to all, and happy first day of school to all teachers out there or students who might be starting today!

Love,

Mack

September 2nd Monarchs

Good morning everyone!

It is a gorgeous though rainy morning here in the Catskills with warmer temperatures (66°F this morning!) and rainy. Our new weather instrument, the rain gauge, has not accused any levels of significant precipitation however during the last hour (from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m.). We call this type of accumulation a “trace”. We are very excited to use it for the first time though since we got it in August!

Winston and I think it is wet, though. I do NOT like to get wet, so when I feel the water starting to hit me, I freeze. (Weirdly enough, I like baths better than Winston does – I’m a very good boy when it comes to staying in the bathtub. Winston, at half my size, is a bigger challenge!)

Today we inspected the property for our resident monarchs and milkweed. We’ve been doing a lot of research on monarch butterflies because we are interested in bringing these to school, but we want to do it in the most ecologically correct manner. We are going to collect the butterflies today as their only milkweed is running out of leaves, and we are interested in saving other milkweeds that are in our field by transplanting them, so they don’t get mowed over. The idea is to eventually create a butterfly garden, but we’ll let Winston talk about that on Saturday.

We think that seeing the monarchs develop into their chrysalis and then butterflies will help young children appreciate and preserve nature, so in our mind we are “helping” in one way (and of course releasing the butterflies). We are however leaving the caterpillars the longest time possible in nature and only collecting them at the very end of their cycle. Stay tuned for Saturday’s post to read how we are going about this project and what you can do to help!

Hurricane Dorian is now a Category 5 hurricane and it has made landfall three times in the Bahamas. Just a side note on hurricanes – there have been 35 Category 5 hurricanes in recorded history (since 1924). Four of them have formed since 2017. Dorian is now tied for the second strongest winds at 185 mph, behind Hurricane Allen. It has the strongest winds that have made landfall in the Bahamas and is tied for the strongest winds to make landfall, ever (tied with none other but Labor Day hurricane, of 1935!).

It is still moving very slowly, which is more reason to believe that it will continue to have strong winds and dump lots of water on its path.

Meanwhile, our rain is not hurricane related, but caused by a warm front that moved across the US and met with a cold front coming from Canada. We can expect today to be rainy, and then for the temperatures to drop as another cold front is coming down from Canada.

It will be interesting to see how a high-pressure system to the East of Dorian and a cold front to the NW will affect its trajectory.

Enjoy your Labor Day everyone!

Love,

Mack

August 31st Hurricane and winter forecast

Good morning everyone! It is a lovely 49°F sunny morning at 94% humidity – yes, we got drenched this morning! We enjoyed taking a spin around the property and scaring all the starlings away – there are only a few of them left at the crack of dawn.

Down South, Hurricane Dorian, a Category 4 hurricane is no longer expected to make landfall in Florida! We can thank the Western winds and also a mighty cold front from NW Canada that seems to even weaken the hurricane in the jet stream simulation that you can see here. We certainly are already seeing the effects of this cold front: temperatures have definitely lowered overnight from a high 73°F yesterday (predicted upper 60’s today) and humidity is on the rise. Here in the Northeast, we might get the outer arms of the hurricane in form of precipitation, after it has weakened considerably and downgraded to a tropical storm near the Carolinas. The most recent updates online, which happen to be from CNN, now are saying that the storm might land in the Carolinas instead later this week, and the jet stream simulation seems to approve these odds of the hurricane hitting or stationing just outside the Carolinas.

That is not to say that Florida and Georgia shouldn’t be prepared – the hurricane could strengthen still and beat the cold front. My humble canine opinion is that it won’t, but time will tell.

Speaking of opinions, we talked to our human neighbors who agreed with our theory that the fall will be gorgeous! They also mentioned that the Farmer’s Almanac, and real NY farmers, seem to think that this upcoming winter will be a harsh one with lots of snow. Our bountiful apples, acorns, and abundance of scurrying activity from birds and rodents may be a signal that animals should prepare for a tough winter. Even Winston has been eating acorns! Myself, I have acquired a nice layer of fat over my chest area – I am trying out the role of Santa Paws this year!

Have a great Labor Day weekend everyone and stay safe down South!

Love,

Mack

August 30th The ingredients of fall

Rise and shine everyone! We woke up to one more beautiful sun-gorged morning in our kingdom. The weather station tells us that it is 56°F today with a humidity of 89%. There isn’t much dew on the ground, though, as both Winston and I are dry even though we frolicked lots!

We saw many natural jewels today during our morning walk such as purple cattail plumes, intricate designs left by dead flowers, an array of August flowers, and our very own garden mums. Yup, you guessed it – fall is coming! The very air smells like pumpkin spice, probably from all the cars going past with their D&D coffee. Oh wait, human, did you seriously make pumpkin spice porridge?!

On top of that, we’ve been seeing birds at our empty feeder! I guess it is time to fill ‘er up with some good sunflower seed.

Lots of people have been reporting that this is the beginning of a “fake fall” and that we get a second summer pretty soon. Our family disagrees slightly. With daily temperatures now in the upper 60’s and with this dry weather, we are more leaning towards accepting that a real fall came early this year, with the possibility of sneaking in a couple weeks of Indian summer in mid/late September. This seems to be confirmed by the early release of pumpkin spice coffee. This is very good for a showy autumn display. According to US forest service, “a succession of warm, sunny days and cool, crisp but not freezing nights seems to bring out the most spectacular color displays.” So if we keep up with our sunny 60°F days and nights in the 40’s, we should get some spectacular fall colors here.

Enjoy your Friday everyone!

Love,

Mack

August 28th Weather upgrade

Good morning everyone! After a week of vacation, my human is back! I was so excited to see her that I gave her a million kisses and showed her all my new toys. We got a new toy for the family, too – a weather station!

Now we can also determine the wind speed, dew point, indoor and outdoor humidity, and the atmospheric pressure! This is really neat to improve our weather predicting skills. If the pressure is dropping over a period of time, like we suspect it is, that means a low pressure system is coming in, and rain usually accompanies a low pressure system.

All is well in my kingdom as far as the eye can see! Inside of the human dwelling, however, there seems to be wasps coming into the house! The humans are currently fixing the problem by escorting the bees outside, and I am watching their every move – until I fall over asleep! It IS nap time, after all!

In our garden the tomatoes are huge but still green.

Our human also brought back several geodes to be cracked and inspected from Canada, so we’ll be reporting on these beauties soon!

The weather for today should be increasingly cloudy, then rainy, then back to sunny, with tomorrow morning being a little cooler than today (today was in the 60’s!). Midday temperatures for both today and tomorrow shouls be in the lower 70’s, and tomorrow should be sunny.

Enjoy your Wednesday everyone! (Is it true that school will be in session next Wednesday?!)

Love,

Mack

August 19th Maritime Tropical

Good morning everyone! It is another beautiful morning here, and extraordinarily warm at 65°F (yes, that is warm for a morning temperature here). We can thank a warm front for this change in temperature, or a Maritime Tropical air mass! We felt the warmer air mass on our backs as we hiked the perimeter this morning.

This gorgeous morning should be followed by rising temps in the upper 80’s today!

Despite the warmness of the air, we know that change is afoot. Leaves are starting to turn a shade of dusky red – do you see it?

Two years ago, there was frost on my human’s windshield at dawn on September 1st. It is not impossible to feel the effects of fall this early, even though the heat sneaking in from the South had made us forget all about winter.

More aster has popped up in the meantime, and apples that have turned shades of red are starting to drop.

Other than the wind and our resident cardinal, it was eerily silent this morning! Not a single starling (or red-winged blackbird for that matter) could be found. Is it possible that they have taken off already? Yesterday we saw a flock of geese fly in V formation towards the. . . North. Maybe this warmer weather is confusing them, as well.

We are enjoying the end of summer because our human no longer has to wake up at the crack of dawn until school starts again! This means I could roam the property and even explore. My human was calling and calling, but I knew I had no rush to come back. I can safely say that all is secure!

My human is saying something about getting a fence though. Silly human!

Enjoy your week everyone!

Love,

Mack