Another misty morning rising to a sunny high of 83F with rolling clouds.
Daily Catskills: 08/09/20
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Daily Catskills: 08/08/20
Misty, hazy morning sky, with mixed clouds and warm in the sun. Grey-bottomed clouds threaten rain in the distance. A high of 81F.
Daily Catskills: 08/07/20
More overnight rain spilling into mid-morning. A mix of sun and clouds for the rest of the day. A high of 75F.
Daily Catskills: 08/06/20
Cool and breezy with a high of 77F. Warm in the sunshine. A sky full of mixed clouds like they were thrown into the air. This had better not be the end of bikini weather. That’s all I’m saying.
Daily Catskills: 08/05/20
A fresh and breezy morning with plump clouds set in a milky sky. A high of 75F. Post-rain forest perfect for foraging.
Daily Catskills: 08/04/20
Torrential rain all day until 5pm, (3.7 inches by 4.30pm), tornado watch and a high of 69F. Stormy. Two hours before dusk, the clouds roll away across the sky like curtains opening on stage to reveal a sunny sky like nothing happened, but we’re still all soaking wet and cursing.
Daily Catskills: 08/03/20
Sunny and dry with scattered clouds and high of 81F. Baking in the sun.
Daily Catskills: 08/02/20
Early morning rain continued most of the afternoon with scene stealing clouds rolling away. Sunny for the rest of the day. A high of 86F. Scorcher.
Daily Catskills: 08/01/20
Steamy, muggy with heavy swirling cloud and a slight breeze with a high of 84F. Hazelnuts ripen.
Daily Catskills: 07/31/20
Sunny and mild. A high of 82F: a fair close to July.
Daily Catskills: 07/30/20
A muggy morning with mist rising lazily from the valley and evaporating into a cloudy sky. A high of 80F and more torrential rain late afternoon. Steamy.
Daily Catskills: 07/29/20
A fresh, cooler morning with hazy skies, and a mostly overcast day with a jumble of clouds in assorted light greys. A high of 86F. Torrential rains starting early evening bringing a power cut.
Daily Catskills: 07/28/20
A quiet, overcast morning with torrential overnight rain winding down to a slow shower in a gentle breeze. A high of 80F, humid and muggy.
Daily Catskills: 07/27/20
A warm, hazy morning, growing to a 90 scorcher by mid-afternoon. Torrential rains begin late evening.
Farming: Potatoes
I’m writing a book, so the farm has gone “holistic” for the last week or two and I’m producing a great deal of seeds. Even some of the purslane has blossomed yellow flowers. I’m allowing the asparagus to grow wild, so that the roots will benefit for next year’s season. I also let the Adirondack Red spuds linger too long in the kitchen and they wrinkled up, went moldy and sprouted. The good news is that they smell weird, so the chipmunks won’t go near them. I received a farming pro-tip: throw them in the bed and cover them with straw. Keep the straw wet. I’ve no idea why. It took five minutes in the scorching 90F weather today, so I felt a small accomplishment. We’ll see what happens.
Continue readingDaily Catskills: 07/26/20
A high of 86F, dry with clear skies. Making hay while the sun shines.
Catskills Conversations: Jake Fairbairn, Lazy Crazy Acres Farm
We’re living in extraordinary times, wherein a global pandemic is the new normal and locals here in the Catskills are choosing, or have chosen by default, families and colleagues with whom to quarantine for the foreseeable future. Covid-19 has been rare in our pocket of the mountains with roughly 100 cases in Delaware County, but a region that was already isolated, once again, has become more insulated. Pandemic pods or social bubbles are common, one such bubble being the Tree Juice Maple Syrup bubble.
Covid-19 emerged right during sap season and the Tree Juice team couldn’t afford to halt production, so they quarantined while still working at the sap house on Lazy Crazy Acres Farm in Arkville, Upstate New York, owned by Jake Fairbairn. You probably couldn’t imagine a cuter or nicer team than the four members of TJ hunkered down over the frigid months of February and March, shoving wood around the clock (every 8 minutes) into the sap boiler after having tapped 7500 trees, and together producing over 2400 gallons of maple syrup.
Jake, co-founder of Tree juice Maple Syrup lives on Lazy Crazy Acres, the Fairbairn family farm, which was established in 1841.
JN: How does it feel to be part of history?
JF: Old? I also feel like there’s a sense of responsibility that comes with it.
Continue readingRamp Butter
Using the last of the ramp (wild leeks) as the season comes to a close: ramps can be mixed into butter. There are many anecdotal recipes across the Catskills. You can blanche the leeks first in hot water or heat the butter, but the best way to get the taste of the plant and all its raw nutrients is to just finely chop the ramps and mix them well into the butter. You’ll get the sweet onion taste, but not overwhelm the dish to which you add it. A knob of raw ramp butter on a steak or steamed fish, for example, will complement it well. You can add a couple of tablespoons of this butter to a stew before you serve it. The butter above will be going over roasted asparagus and into a Guinness stew.
Chop the ramps on a plastic surface, so you don’t lose any of the juice into a wooden chopping board. Soften the butter slightly – I tuck it in my armpit for a few minutes – and then fold the ramps into the butter and whip it for a few minutes. Ensure that every part of the chopped ramps are either fully submerged in the butter or, if the ramps stick out of the butter slightly, that they are thickly coated in it. You don’t have to worry about this too much if you freeze the final product, which makes it easier to handle. If you do freeze it, roll it in to a log, or similar shape to a stick of butter and wrap it in the discarded butter wrappers, so you can cut it into knobs when you use it.
Ramp (or Wild Leek) Salt
It’s wild leek (ramp) season and this year we’ve had more than the usual amount of rain needed to nourish these delicate, wild beauties. Every local in the Catskills has their secret ramp spot and few years ago, I transplanted a handful of wild leeks to a shady, wet spot by our house that they love. They love a water source and our house at the top of a ridge has brilliant underground drainage, so when it rains, all the water flows downhill through the ramp patch. Our patch is now several patches. Just before they die off, they send up stalks with dark, perfectly spherical seeds that look like tiny balls of onyx.
Continue readingA Walk in the Woods
Is it Spring or not? I’m afraid not. Up here in the Catskill mountains in the last weekend in April, winter has still not left us. Listen to our first podcast, a spring walk recorded over the weekend of April 25th and 26th, 2020. Saturday was filled with birdsong. However, Sunday we had snow, hail, and freezing rain, but your editor, narrator J.N. Urbanski still walked through the forest and waded through a stream to a waterfall to capture some ambient sounds of the countryside for those listeners stuck in quarantine in the city.
Click on the Sound Cloud link here to listen to the 21-minute podcast. Kick back and pretend your walking with Jenny and Alfie, the black lab mix.
The Upstate Dispatch Podcast
As we enter month two of New York State’s Corona Virus Shelter-in-Place order, the two most important subjects here at the magazine have been the focus of the national consciousness: our food supply and the natural world.
Upstate Dispatch highlights the local farmers, producers and makers of these mountains who do back-breaking work to bring us our food, the farmers who drive every week into the city to sell in places like Union Square Farmers’ Market. Here in the Catskills we enjoy some of the most healthful food in the country. Never has it been so apparent that farming is one of the world’s most meaningful professions. Second, we are watching – some of us from afar – the gradual healing of parts of our environment as man stays home across the globe. It’s fascinating time in this fascinating part of the world: New York State.
Continue readingBee Update: Covid Honey
Bee update: the bees left. They must have swarmed last winter because they left a honey super with seven frames of capped honey that had to be processed by hand this week. This took two days with one muslin bag and a sieve. It took four hours to clean up the kitchen. Sticky. We’re all in a sticky situation, so no change here. In fact, the empty frames are still outside in a big plastic tub waiting to be scrubbed.
This is Covid honey, not having been processed in a commercial kitchen and because of the all the finger-licking, probably will have to be eaten by me alone because I’ve no idea if I’m Corona-free or not.
I’ve produced about six mason jars of honey and about five pounds of wax and thinking of ways to eat all this sweet stuff. Breakfast every day is toast with honey using Bread Alone’s health bread – I have few loaves of this in the freezer. What else? Tea with honey, plus if you put a tablespoon of honey and a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar in a glass of water and stir, this makes a healthful and tasty beverage. Well, maybe not tasty, but definitely makes you feel fantastic. Hold your nose and chug it down.
Recipe ideas welcome in the comments section. Please! Meanwhile, here’s what I did with some carrots. And then I ate the whole lot with a pint of Ommegang Rare Vos. Drink local!
Honey-Glazed Julienne Carrots
This recipe is really easy. Put two cups of julienned carrots in a skillet with a knob of butter and salt/pepper to taste. Personally, I don’t use either. I just don’t find it necessary because I use local vegetables and they taste great on their own. Stir over a medium-to-high heat for about seven minutes. If the carrots dry out, add a splash of cold water and then put the lid on so they steam for a minute. This adds water. If you do this twice in the first seven minutes, you’ll get a half-inch of buttery glaze that the carrots can steam in. After seven minutes, stir in a quarter-cup of honey over the carrots, wait a few seconds for the honey to liquify, and then stir well over the heat for the remaining three minutes. The carrots will be crunchy and sweet.
The Kelly Hollow Trail
Hiking our forest is a way to be 3ft, 6ft, 600ft, or even 6 miles away from the nearest person and possibly the best way to soothe body, mind and spirit during these testing times. New York State is waiving all park fees in state, local and county parks according to the latest news on the NY State website, which will no doubt encourage everyone to get outdoors. Enjoy one of the Catskills’ easiest hikes, the Kelly Hollow Loop, in the northeastern slopes of Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest that has an elevation gain of about 500ft making is suitable for all ages, including seniors who are probably self-isolating and need to get outside the most.
The trailhead and parking area for the Kelly Hollow Trail is on Mill Brook Road about five miles or so further west from the Balsam Lake Mountain Wild Forest trailhead and parking area on Mill Brook Road, which is where you pick up the blue-blazed Dry Brook Ridge trail that runs south towards Balsam Lake Mountain with its fire tower. So if you’re much fitter and need something more strenuous, you could do both the Kelly Hollow Loop and the hike down Dry Brook Ridge to the Balsam Lake Fire tower in one day. So there’s something for the whole family on this short stretch of Mill Brook Road, due south of Arkville, NY.
Continue readingUpstate Dispatches
Here in the Catskills a high percentage of the population are seniors and retirees, so the community is taking social distancing and self-quarantine very seriously. Gatherings, even of small groups like book clubs and language classes, have been cancelled, but we still need to support local businesses to keep them up and running. There has been much laughing over why there is no toilet paper. Why is toilet paper a rarity but fine Belgian beer and fabulous chocolate freely available in bulk? Strange. Perhaps because there are no leaves on the trees yet?
Continue readingMake Your Own Thieves Oil: Organic Hand Sanitizer
The natural world recently got a break when it was deemed that terms like “fire cider” are generic terms and can be used by everyone who makes the product. Companies had previously trademarked the product to stop small businesses and makers like local herbalists from using it. Now they’re able to continue marketing their fire cider products. Go here to learn about making your own fire cider.
Thieves Oil is also an ancient medicinal potion that dates back to the Middle Ages when Europe was devastated by the Great Plague that was so contagious that it killed one hundred thousand of people in London alone, which was a quarter of the population. It was only stopped in London by the Great Fire of 1666 that swept through the city. Before that however, there was a band of thieves that went through London robbing the wealthy people who had succumbed to the plague. The thieves were caught and the judge demanded to ask how they had not contracted the disease and died. They gave the recipe for this natural sanitizer that they had doused over themselves and covered handkerchieves and face masks. It was so potent that it stopped the thieves from contracting the plague.
Continue readingLiza Belle’s Kitchen
It’s not often you find yourself, all windswept by the frigid mountain air, sitting cross-legged in your rubber boots in the cozy window nook of a homestyle restaurant listening to the soothing sounds of a sitar. The only thing to do when you unexpectedly find yourself in that situation, after having only gone out to buy soap, is to lean in, kick back and order the curry lovingly handmade by Liza Belle, that is robust enough to keep your warm until dinner.
Last time we met, Liza baked a mass of rich, sweet sticky toffee pudding in her kitchen at home, narrating the recipe as she cooked. This time, it was a delicious Thai green coconut curry with jackfruit: perfect to stave off the winter blues. Jackfruit, packed with nutrients and protein, is often used in stews as a meat replacement due to its fibrous texture – it makes a great vegan pulled pork – but it’s sweet and fruity, blending well in this curry with potatoes and string beans. The fragrant jasmine rice was perfectly cooked. A nice bonus was the lightening, cooling effect of the starfruit garnish. This was a proper curry, not for those with weak taste buds. Brace yourself for the full flavors and strong spices.
Also on offer was a dal, a thick lentil soup with braised kale.
Continue readingOn Going to Seed
Back in the day, something described as “going to seed”, was something – usually a woman – that was old, neglected or useless, on the turn, dried out or past its sell-by date, but we can take that idiom back and revise it. We can transform it into a farming analogy to assist people preparing for another round of winter blues, cabin fever or those suffering the bleakness of depression or raw pain of heartache .
From Kristi Burnett of Burnett Farms, a local farmer, comes a tip that she received from a past mentor. If you’re in the depths of depression, imagine yourself as a seed frozen and buried in the earth. It’s dark and cold down there, but come spring, you’ll transform, emerging from the soil with enormous potential, growing into a towering oak or majestic hemlock, a being much larger than you were before. Now is the time to hunker down, meditate, study, and prepare to break ground and blossom in the spring. You may never be the same again, but you will be robust enough to scatter your knowledge like more, hardier wild seeds in a strong wind.
On Hibernation
Winter is here. We’re uncertain as to how long she is staying this month, but it you’re stuck in your garret mourning lost love like Elizabeth Barrett Browning, living on a frame of home-produced honey and foraged mushrooms, its arrival comes way too early. If you have nobody to snuggle in your hibernation, now is the time to find someone.
Fortunately, up here we have some fine influencers keeping hope alive: gentlewomen of modern lore. Laura Silverman of The Outside Institute kindly reminds us that there still sparks of life in an apparently barren landscape. Laura will be leading a winter foraging walk on December 7th. Leigh Melander of Spillian shares an article in Fast Company on how Norwegians enjoy winter. Norwegians celebrate the things one can only do in winter and make sure they get outside every day: “there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing. Norwegians also have a word, koselig, that means a sense of coziness. It’s like the best parts of Christmas, without all the stress.”
Winter in the Catskills is undoubtedly a spectacularly beautiful season, with the former vibrant landscape frozen in time, with seeds hovering atop dry stalks, ready to fly into the wind. If you have south facing windows, remove your curtains or blinds and let the low light flood in first thing in the morning and remain there all day. To watch the deer stalking methodically in single-file through a snow storm in single-digit temperatures is to be reminded exactly how weak a species we are without our creature comforts.
The Magnificent Opus 40 Sculpture Park
In the shadow of Overlook Mountain in Upstate New York, you’ll find one of the most apt monuments of the Catskills, The Opus 40 Sculpture Park. It’s apt because it was built by hand using Catskills bluestone, and in the Catskills it’s no exaggeration to say we have vast quantities of rock and stone, which is emblematic of the strength of character necessary to create the life of a resilient, full-time mountain-dweller. Living in the Catskills year-round is to be like Sisyphus, to roll the proverbial rock up the hill and attempt to keep it there. Opus 40 is the quintessential symbol of the challenging task of making a living in these ancient hills. Here, as the saying goes, there are “two stones for every dirt” – more loose stone than soil – and one local transplant even spent four years removing all the stones from his land so that he could start a farm fit to be planted.
Assembled by hand over 37 years by local sculptor Harvey Fite, the park rises out of the pit of an abandoned quarry like it’s a relic that’s been delicately unearthed by the brush of a giant archeologist. What’s extraordinary is that there were no plans or drawings made before the work began. Fite literally just began and continued until his death 37 years later, and all his tools, winches and pulleys remain to this day in the Quarryman’s Museum in a red barn on the property. It’s named Opus 40 because he predicted that it would take 40 years to complete, but he met an untimely demise three years shy of his goal in an accidental fall in the park.
The Farmer’s Market
We’re in maker country here in the Catskills and the food is delicious. Around here, if you’d like (truly) free-range eggs with bright orange, sweet and creamy yolks, you don’t have to go far to find a neighbor with chickens. If you want award-winning cheese, milk, or hearty homemade bread, there are small-batch bakers and cheese-mongers within a short drive. It’s not unusual to find squash on your porch during harvest season, because up here it’s so abundant that you can’t give it away and this year’s wild apples could have fed everyone in NYC.
For visitors, there are farmers’ markets like the Pakatakan that has extended this year’s season to November 30th. Sign up for the newsletter here.
For a full list of Catskills farmers go to Pure Catskills.
In New York City, there’s the Union Square Market, Fort Greene and Grand Army Plaza markets where you could find East Branch Farms and Kimchee Harvest this past Saturday. Also at Union Square was Lucky Dog, Locust Grove and Roxbury Mountain Maple, among many others.
Since about 2014, you can now use food stamps at farmers’ markets. Go to Grow NYC for more details on the SNAP program.
Eat real food. Eat Local. Support your local farmer.
Happy Birthday Upstate Dispatch!
Tomorrow will mark the five year anniversary of Upstate Dispatch. I’m not sure how that happened, but it’s been a wild ride. I can honestly say that this city girl has learned so much more about life, work and herself these past few years than could have been imagined.
To commemorate, I will be a guest on the radio tonight of Steve Burnett in his show The Evening Tickler at 6pm. Listen in on WIOX here.
You may have noticed that there hasn’t been much on the website these past few months and there’s a reason for that. I’m taking my life in an entirely new direction. I’ve no idea where it will lead, but there will be a new website devoted to more of my writing life than just this neck of the woods, and new media-based work in the arts and further afield. But there’s so much content here, you could peruse this site for the next year on the old posts alone. Below find links to the most popular posts of the past five years. Coming up for UD in the future, we’ll be more food-focused with new contributors to write on recipes, farming and the local economy. We’re looking for sponsors to underwrite our fall content and invite pitches to info@upstatedispatch.com.
Meanwhile, over the summer, it has been nice to relax into the scenery, just exist in the woods, forage, harvest and meditate, without having to document every leaf, stream and view of it.
Upstate Dispatch Links
We never finished the Catskills 35! I have just six bushwhacks left and will do those over the winter because the summit is easier to find without the leaves on the trees. However, our hiking section is the most popular.
See our Instagram feed here.
An interview with Bill Birns got us about 13,000 new views and Rob Handel is one of the most accomplished young chefs in the region.
An interview with Steve and Kristie Burnett.
Catskills drinking!
Thanks so much for reading.
Summer in the Catskills
Summer in the Catskills is coming to a close. The bees swarmed a couple of times – more on those later – and the farm is growing over with thistles and blackberry bushes. Goldenrod has taken hold like the rays of some sort of eternal sunrise; hazelnuts and apples are being harvested; garlic has finished curing; horseradish root is being turned into sauce. Have you ever peeled the outer coating of a hazelnut? I’ll be here for days, but it’s worth it for what looks to be about 20 pounds of hazelnuts, possibly more.
Continue readingChilled Cucumber Gazpacho
This is an update of our recipe from a few years ago, because now you can buy almond milk. There’s no need to soak almonds overnight and strain them to get their milk. Cucumbers are in season from July through October and this refreshing, sweet chilled soup is the perfect antidote to our scorching recent Catskills weather.
Cucumber Gazpacho
Three medium sized English cucumbers
Three cups of almond milk, unsweetened
Half cup of water
An apple, peeled, chopped and cored or 10 grapes
Three teaspoons of olive oil
Half teaspoon of salt
Half teaspoon of pepper
Puree the grapes in a blender, sieve them and save the liquid. Peel, chop and puree the cucumbers in a food processor until they are liquid and while the cucumbers are blending add the olive oil, salt and pepper, grape juice and almond milk. You might also like to add a little of the almond or grape pulp to garnish with a splash of olive oil. Chill before serving. Delicious.
This is the sort of recipe that you can amend without too much fuss. If you want a sweeter gazpacho, you just throw all the fruit – an apple and the grapes – in the blender with the cucumber. (If the result is too thick, add more almond milk.) This also makes a perfect pre-workout smoothie where, if you haven’t had a chance to eat all day yet you still want to work out, you can drink this an hour or two before exercising.
Daily Catskills: 06/29/19
Hot and humid, mostly sunny with an omnipresent armada of giant, scene-stealing clouds, thunder and late afternoon torrential downpours. A high of 89F. The black lab loiters in the shadows. Super steamy.
Pea & Mint Soup
The wild mint is out in force with the wild flowers, but we must wait longer for the peas or find them in the freezer. There’s something about pea and mint soup that screams summer. This is a family recipe, but there’s really nothing to it. Fry up some onions, garlic and thyme in oil or butter, add stock, boil until warm then add peas and mint. Simmer for only a minute, then blend with a hand blender. If you love the taste and texture of fresh peas, use frozen peas and put them in the stock straight from the freezer. They will thaw, but not cook all the way. Only blend half the soup and add a knob of butter in each bowl of soup when you serve it to get the taste of buttered peas with a little crunch of sweet pea. You can also garnish with a dash of balsamic vinegar if you’re not into the butter and want to add a tangy element. If you’re going to go with the balsamic option for the first time, put the balsamic vinegar on the side, dip toasted or warm bread in the vinegar, and dip the vinegar toast in the soup.
Pea & Mint Soup
- Half an onion
- Two tablespoons of oil
- One tablespoon of minced garlic
- One tablespoon of dried thyme
- One liter of chicken broth, or non-chicken vegetarian broth
- One pound of frozen peas
- Ten leaves of fresh mint, or more depending on how minty you want it
- Butter to garnish
Finely chop the onion and fry it with the garlic and thyme in the oil until lightly brown. Add stock and bring to the boil. Add the peas and simmer for a minute only. Add the mint. Blend with the hand blender, but only blend half the soup. Stir the soup with a spoon. Garnish with butter or a dash of balsamic vinegar. You can make the soup as minty as you like it. Start with less mint first, because you can add it, but can’t take it away once you’ve blended it in. If you want to add more mint after you’ve served it, just pop in a few more leaves into the saucepan, stir the soup and then remove the leaves. Fresh mint will always leave a lot of mint oil behind, so you don’t necessarily need the leaves in there. You’ll notice that there’s no salt in this recipe because there’s enough salt in the broth and, if you over-salt, it clashes with the mint.
Daily Catskills: 06/22/19
Overcast with brief periods of sun and a high of 72F.
Daily Catskills: 06/23/19
Gorgeous summer day, sunny with a gentle breeze and a high of 75F. Wild clover feeds the bees.
Daily Catskill: 06/21/19
On the Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, some forest bathing. Humid with a high of 72F, frequent rain showers and brief periods of sun.
Daily Catskills: 06/20/19
High humidity and overcast with shimmering cloud and scattered showers. A high of 76F late in the afternoon. Muggy, with late afternoon rain showering into the evening.
Reishi Hunting
Ganoderma Tsugae or Lacquered Polypore, has many names, but the most popular one is Reishi and it’s out in the Catskills now, mid-June, although it does appear from Spring through Fall. It is sometimes found in Winter months too, but here at the higher elevations, it’s both literally and figuratively at its peak. Other names for it are Varnished Polypore and Hemlock Varnished Shelf. Reishi grows on hemlocks in particular, or can also be found on other coniferous wood. The surface under its cap has pores, not gills, so it is spongy to the touch and, in fresh samples, off-white in color.
It grows directly from dead or living trees or roots of removed trees. The specimen above was growing on a logged tree stump and is the size of a hand, but they can grow much bigger. It causes white rot, acting as both parasite and decomposer.
For millennia, Reishi has been used for medicinal purposes in China. It’s reportedly an immune booster. It’s usually peeled and sliced and simmered in boiling water, with the water drunk as tea, but it tastes hideous. Another form of Reishi (Ganoderma Lucidum) is widely available in health stores as a powder to put in a hot beverage, or hot water, or in pill form.
Here in the Catskills, I know more than one person who claims mushroom supplements have stopped their allergy symptoms.
To store Reishi, put it in a paper bag in the fridge. You can preserve mushrooms by drying them. To do this, slice the mushrooms and arrange them flat on a baking tray. Put them in the oven on the lowest setting (170F) for two to three hours, until they’re fully dried, or buy a dehydrator.
Daily Catskills: 06/19/19
A sultry early morning with high humidity and clouds of swirling fog turning the trees to ghosts. A high of 75F with glimpses of sun and scattered rain showers.
Daily Catskills: 06/18/19
Rain beginning in the morning until early afternoon. Overcast with a luminous blanket of foggy cloud and humid with a high of 71F. Snapping turtle lays her eggs in a freshly dug hole by the side of the road. 90 days from now roughly 40 baby turtles will pop out of this anonymous mountain birthplace.
Daily Catskills: 06/17/19
Hot and humid with clouds hanging in the air like billowing smoke, and a gentle breeze. 73F by early afternoon and a high of 78F. Intermittent rain showers.
Monday Morning Motivation
John Burroughs’ writing desk at his home, Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury, Upstate New York.
Writers might be hard pressed to find a more storied place in the Catskills to work for a few hours than this desk, at over 100 years old at Woodchuck Lodge.
Daily Catskills: 06/16/19
Rain starting mid-morning and continuing for most of the day. A high of 66F and humid with the ubiquitous hovering mist.
Daily Catskills: 06/15/19
A mix of sun and cloud, balmy and humid with late afternoon showers leaving a coat of mist, making it look like the mountains accumulated a layer of dust.
John Burroughs’ Bathroom is Hipster Heaven
Hipsters ferreting around at Roxbury’s historic landmark Woodchuck Lodge might bypass his fading 100-year-old collection of Atlantic Monthly (still going strong) magazines and stop in the bathroom with a loving gaze. Here’s one part of the lodge that doesn’t need any update, or if anything, the window should be made floor-to-ceiling so that one can bathe in full view of the mountains. It’s the writer’s perfect rustic meditation spot, complete with clawfoot tub and gorgeous light all year around. It’s so impossible to take a bad picture in here at any time of day, that it’s tempting to believe this might have been where Burroughs did most of his important thinking late in his life. The colors: burgundy and mint green are faded, but no less attractive than they were 100 years ago and we can just imagine the old man at 84 years of age, soaking away, pondering his early escapades on Slide Mountain.
Board members of John Burroughs Woodchuck Lodge are in dire need of donations to restore the lodge, but on social media I see home owners putting in similar bathrooms to John Burroughs’ all over the Catskills, so I feel like they can breathe a sigh of relief on this score, because there are plenty of renovations and remediation work necessary elsewhere on the property.
Woodchuck Lodge was built by John’s brother in 1862, 15 years after John was born, on the east end of the Burroughs family farm. The Burroughs’ homestead where both boys grew up is a mile away up the road and was built when John was 13 years of age. Woodchuck Lodge was John’s retreat in retirement. Boyhood Rock and his grave are a few minutes’ walk up the road. John Burroughs Woodchuck Lodge is a non-profit corporation. Your donations are tax deductible.
Daily Catskills: 06/09/19
Hot, with thick ribbons of wispy cloud and a high of 80F. Refreshing breeze in the shade gets stronger towards sunset. Yellow lily pads flowers are unfurling their petals.
Daily Catskills: 06/08/19
A high of 85F with cloudless skies and a hazy horizon. Scorching in the sun, balmy in the shade. Steamy summer day. Fields full of buttercups soaking up the sun.
Daily Catskills: 06/07/19
Only the birds tweet here. A balmy day, sunny with clouds of gauze, looking like they’ve been white-washed on with thick brushstrokes and a high of 78F. Little hatchets keep their siblings warm.
Daily Catskills: 06/06/19
Humid, with brief periods of sunshine, but otherwise overcast with a sky like a thick jumble of shorn wool and a high of 72F.
Daily Catskills: 06/05/19
A balmy summer day, humid with strong lunchtime sun taking the high to 81F. A thick milky sky developing after lunch and early evening rain giving the ground a soaking. Hops grow up their bines.
Daily Catskills: 06/04/19
An overnight plunge into the 30s, and a frosty morning rising to a high of 69F. Overcast with a milk glass sky and humid.
Daily Catskills: 06/03/19
Warm in the sun, with a decidedly unfriendly chill lurking in the shade and a high of 62F. Blueberry blossoms come out in force early and hang in abundance like tiny paper lanterns.
Daily Catskills: 06/02/19
Overnight rain storms, thunder, and lightning drench the landscape. Humid and sticky for a high of 73F and overcast with a blanket of cloud like shimmering fleece. Lengthy periods of afternoon rain dragging on until early evening. Juicy purslane first out of the gate in the raised beds.
