Overnight rain ends mid-morning making for another misty morning landscape and overnight high of 61F. An overcast and humid day rising to a high of 73F. We’re approaching peak fall as the oranges appear with the yellows and some sparse reds. Cloud cover dampens the colors.
Humid and overcast with thick rolling cloud and a high of 73F. Autumnal fireworks in full effect: approaching peak leaf peeping. Overnight lows have risen to the sixties.
Thick mist rising out of the valley in the morning. Humid and overcast. A high of 72F with a light breeze. T-shirt weather and almost peak fall season with overnight reds and oranges joining the yellows. Spectacular.
A high of 80F on the peaks by the afternoon with the fall colors popping in the brilliant sunshine and fat, billowing clouds. A glorious fall day.
Thick mist rising out of the valleys early morning and hanging in the air like fog until the afternoon. Humid with ominous, rolling cloud that dispersed at sunset and a high of 72F that continued to sunset. A steamy fall day. Some reds, but mostly yellows that are much more prominent in the midday sun.
A warm, sunny morning rising to 59F by 10.30am with a jumble of cloud under a glassy sky. A high of 70F and a warm evening with an overnight low of 53F. Landscape is fading to yellow a little further. T-shirt weather today.
Fall began at 9.30am this morning. A warm, cloudless day with a high of 67F. T-shirt weather in the sun and sweats in the shade. The landscape looks dark green with red patches in the bright sunshine, but the setting sun casts a yellow haze over the foliage that is gone by morning.
Hazy cloudless sky, bright sunshine, cool in the shade. A high of 63F. A chilly but bright evening, with the waning sunset making the landscape look much more yellow than it is on the last day of summer. Overnight low of 31F.
A chilly start to the day, but still sunny all day with blue glass sky with only a few slender clouds on the horizon like someone didn’t wipe it clean properly. Overnight low in the thirties again and a high of 59F.
A morning full of dew with frost receding into the shadows after the overnight low plunges to 32F. A day of full sun with a blue lightbox sky and a lazy breeze. A high of 59F but still warm in the sun. The red leaves become a bit more prominent against all the green, but no fall explosion yet.
Picnic dinners on East Branch Farm continue until October 11th, 2020 on Friday and Sunday nights at 5.30pm ($25-30 per head). Friday is meat based; last Friday’s was Korean BBQ. Sundays are vegetarian. Go online to www.eastbranchfarms.com to reserve a picnic spot. Picnics take place on the farm on tables and chairs made from tree stumps nestled under the apple trees and around the edge of a huge field of six-feet-tall goldenrod you could get lost in. Bring your own picnic blankets for chilly autumn evenings. The farm sits in a wide valley with panoramic views of the Catskill Mountains on Route 30 in Roxbury, Upstate New York, but the spots are pretty private. You really don’t see anyone while you’re eating and with those magnificent views, you can watch the sunset while wrapped up in a blanket: perfect for romantic date night.
A previous version of this post contained the incorrect link to East Branch Farms. Apologies to subscribers who have the incorrect link in their original email.
Chilly yet still humid and not quite sweater weather. Autumn is emerging as a general dulling of the green with some blotches of red. Breezy and warm in the sun, with only wispy, thin cloud. A high of 65F. A frigid but clear night full of stars.
Dina Falconi has written a color, hardback cookbook for foraged, wild food, beautifully illustrated by Wendy Hollender that makes a luscious, engaging read. Beginning this Fall, here at Upstate Dispatch you’ll see some of the recipes. For whatever ingredient is out of season, we’ll use a non-local ingredient to practice in the recipes in advance of foraging for the real thing next year. The author is based in Accord, NY, so this is a local book.
Fall might be a strange time to start, but we were somewhat distracted this Spring by Covid-19. We’ve all had a rough year and now we’re looking at a decidedly different winter in 2020. Cooking up a storm is a comforting way to make yourself feel better, warm up the house, feed family or friends, and also add some new recipes to your repertoire.
Foraging is a way to reduce your carbon footprint even further than avoiding red meat and air travel. By eating locally and seasonally, you’re saving the transportation costs of food that comes from far and wide, but learning the ropes of what grows in your local area takes study and dedication, especially if you’re mushroom hunting. Most mushrooms are not worth eating, or not worth the risk of poisoning, for example.
Dina’s book includes illustrated details of many local, wild edibles; plant habitat and growing conditions; seasonal harvest chart, and recipes for soups, desserts, condiments, beverages, dips, spreads, preserves and much more. This book is remarkable because of illustrations, and the way they are laid on on each page, that makes the information more easily remembered than any other foraging book. They are all color pencil sketches, and for each plant there are contrasting illustrations on the same page that simply makes it crystal clear to the reader. In some cases, there are cross sections of fruit that depict the seed inside. It’s just a noteworthy book for its clarity and ease of reference: a keeper. This copy’s going to get well-thumbed, dirty and handed down to the next generation.
There’s a page devoted to a “wild grilled cheese master recipe” using nettle and other raw greens and wildflowers. Because there are wild flowers still out there in these last days of summer, this recipe could be tried first, but we’ll see what’s at the farmers’ market tomorrow.
Warm and sunny with faint patches of pale red dotting the landscape. A light breeze blows handfuls of yellow leaves over the road. A high of 67F. Sunset over a cloudless, milk glass sky. Fall is on its way.
Humid and muggy with low-lying mist and a high of 73F. The last days of t-shirt weather. Weekend picnics continue at East Branch Farms.
Happy Birthday Upstate Dispatch! It’s been six years since the website begun and the birthday was spent filming the pilot of our local Catskills news broadcast. I’m one of the news anchors with Kent Garrett (pictured right), under my maiden name, Jenny Neal. The project is being developed for MTC Corporation, who are opening up their News Channel 10 for our weekly newscast; The MARK Project and apparently tireless producer Jessica Vecchione.
Kent Garrett and I were formerly colleagues at WIOX Radio and now we’re going to be colleagues on television.
Humid and misty with rain for most of the day. Muggy with a high of 79F and fog clinging to the landscape until late evening. A soggy day.
A warm start to the day, rising to 77F by 11.30am. Humid with shimmering cloud, brief periods of brilliant sun and a high of 81F. Sultry.
Dewy grass sparkles in the rising sun. A gorgeous, serene day with some clouds and a high of 81F. Lavender sky at sunset.
A cool, dewy morning with a stiff breeze. A cloudy day with a high of 73F and breezy with thin late-afternoon clouds dispersing towards dusk.
A cooler day with a high of 65F, but quite humid, with pre-dawn rain for an hour at 4am that broke the four day sun forecast and ruined the downed hay. Layers upon layers of tumultuous clouds that lighten up by dusk.
Bright and sunny for most of the day with distant armadas of plump clouds and a high of 74F. The orchard is ready for apple picking.
At last, some sun. Sunny for the most of the day with clear skies until late afternoon when wisps of cloud appeared and gradually got thicker. A high of 74F but cool in the shade. A slight, barely perceptible reddening of the landscape.
A dew-soaked morning full of mist, turning sunny for a brief while and then, in moved the clouds, light blue and creamy, like blueberry milkshake until they went all gray like dirty dishwater. Humid with a high of 75F. Dismally dull until late afternoon when the clouds dispersed into wisps until dusk.
Morning: more rain, heavy and wet, the kind of rain that you go out in for a few seconds and get totally soaked. The rest of the day: September’s pervasive mist and muggy with layers of impenetrable clouds and a high of 72F. Sultry.
A chilly morning. Overcast with misty rain for most of the day and a high of 70F. A moody day.
A cool but bright, sunny day with low clouds and a high of 71F. Perfect hazelnut drying weather.
