28F by 10am with snow beginning shortly thereafter. A dismally grey, overcast Spring Equinox. Update: heavy snow into the afternoon with an inch of powder laying on roads and tree branches.
© J.N. Urbanski 5.12pm View from the Office
© J.N. Urbanski 3.45pm
© J.N. Urbanski Sprouting seedlings planted on 15th March
It feels like spring has been put on ice, but don’t put the cork back in the champagne yet. Today, March 20th is the vernal equinox, with two additional bonus features of a solar eclipse and a perigee moon, in which the sun looks about 15% bigger than it usually does: dubbed a “Supermoon”.
For the 24 hours of the equinox, the durations of the day and night are equal because the sun shines directly at the equator. The suns rays are perpendicular to the earth. When you live in the mountains, you notice the position of the sun more keenly and during winter months it rises and sets much lower than its summer east/west positions. Days will now start to get longer until the longest day of the year, which will be the June Solstice.
So the days may be long, but nothing has sprung except the indoor seedlings planted last Sunday 15th March and sprouting in the spare bedroom. If you don’t have a heated greenhouse outside, you can “start” your seeds inside, but don’t use potting soil: use peat. These cauliflowers are five days old.
23F at 10.30m: face-freezingly frigid.
© Margaret Helthaler The morning sun catches Sugarloaf Mountain while the Roundout flood plain rests in shadow, Grahamsville, NY
21F at 9am with high winds. The snow gets whipped up by the squalls.
© Margaret Helthaler Big Hollow Road, Grahamsville
© J.N. Urbanski The Hubbell Tractor visible from Route 30 near Halcottsville 3/14/15
Poignant relics of Catskills’ history like this antique tractor are to be found all over the Catskills, as much part of the landscape as the forest. Over the next few weeks, as spring begins, we’ll be photographing these enigmatic idols as they sit silently conveying their story like stoic immortal pioneers. May they always be around to remind us of the work involved in settling these mountains. Along Route 28 and other routes, you will find pieces of farm equipment and other machinery arranged into statues. We’ll be documenting those too.
© Nicole Vente – Erik at his office in the Catskill Center
Erik P Johanson has lived in the Catskills for little more than a year, but has already developed a business plan for the redevelopment of the Maxbilt Theatre in Fleischmanns, which has resulted in the building being put on State and National Register of Historic Places in 2014: a formidable achievement in such a short time. He now works full-time for the Catskill Center in Arkville. After having lived in New York City for ten years, Erik and his boyfriend tried the Berkshires, New Mexico and looked to purchase property in Los Angeles before buying a house in the Catskills and moving here full-time.
What first brought you to the Catskills?
34F at 8am rising to 39F. Wet and overcast: mud season continues unabated.
© Margaret Helthaler The Reformed Church in Grahamsville
© J.N. Urbanski Hubbell Hemlock 3/14/15
There’s nothing more majestic than a towering hemlock, a evergreen conifer that seems to be loosely draped in its elegantly weeping branches that dangle delicately towards the earth. It can live to 800 years or more and grow to statuesque heights of more than 70 feet. Last year’s call for illustrations of the Hemlock for an exhibition ignited interest among artists of the Catskills and once I started looking for hemlock, I found them everywhere. I even found a short sapling on my property and it will outlive me by many many hundreds of years, if it’s not attacked by the Hemlock Wooly Adelgid, an invasive species native to Asia. The Catskills Center has a new programme for the pest that’s thought to have arrived in New York in the eighties.
From their website:
As I mentioned last week, there was Jazz at Spillian last night, during an event that I dub Soup at the Spills, which was actually a combination of their regular Soup Sundays and their Voices of the Catskills series. In honour of St Patrick’s Day, the Spill’s Culinary Curator Melissa Zeligman made Colcannon, which was delicious. The weather had taken a squally detour down a cold, muddy road by the afternoon yesterday – it had already started snowing again in the morning – so the Irish stew was the perfect wintery feast. By this morning, the sun had come out again in force as if yesterday’s aberrant hail/snow/rain/mud mix had never happened.
© J.N. Urbanski
The Upstate Dispatch thermometer thinks it’s in the tropics: 48F at 9am as the morning sun burns strongly through the utterly gorgeous morning haze. Trout season begins April 1st.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
Dense morning snow fall and 34F at 10am. Rather deflating to pull the blinds to yet more snow. *Sigh*
© J.N. Urbanski 10.49am View from the bed
The maples have been tapped and the sap is boiling, old-school style, at the Hubbell Sugar Shack and will be boiling for the next month. This sugar shack runs on a wood-burning furnace and the product, Liquid Gold is sold at Catskill Rentals and Sandford Auto Parts.
© J.N. Urbanski
© J.N. Urbanski
The Hubbell Cider Press dates back to the 1880s. The mountain railroad allowed farmers of the Catskills access to heavy machinery left over from the civil war. Chopped apples come down the chute, top left and land in the barrel, bottom left. The mush is then pressed flat between racks on the press in the background. Juice is collected in trays beneath the press running down the centre.
36F at 9am, rising to 40F by noon. Dreary and overcast, the last of the snow dripping from rooves and melting snow making a muddy mess of the roads. Mud season in full swing, the only advantage being that you can wipe your muddy boots off in the snow. Update: lunchtime rain ushered in mountaintop mist that had sunk into valleys by dusk.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
© J.N. Urbanski 1.15pm Hubbell Outhouse
© J.N. Urbanski The Explorers’ Room at Spillian
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 Molly Marquand at her office at CRISP in the Catskills Center
“My muse is always nature.” Molly J Marquand, Catskills transplant and fellow native Brit, photographer, writer, naturalist, and wild flower gardener dishes the dirt to Upstate Dispatch in our new series Catskills Conversations.
How long have you lived in the Catskills? About two and a half years, I moved from New York City where my fiancé and I, Martin, lived for three years. I was born in England and moved to the Hudson Valley just before high school. I did go back to England to get my Masters Degree, in Taxonomy and Conservation of Plant Diversity (Botany) a joint programme with Kew Botanical Gardens and The University of Reading. But my undergraduate degree, which was in Ecology, I did at Bates in Maine.
What made you move here? I’d always had my eye on it, because I knew that I always needed space. We had this dream of having a farm and having wide open tracts of land. At the same time, I wanted to be close to my mother who lives in the Hudson Valley. [My fiancé and I] were both attracted to landscapes like the Rockies and Montana and places like that, but knowing that we were never going that far away because Martin’s family live in New York City.
40F by 1.30pm, putting temporary brakes on mud season on the higher elevations. Slushy fields, but brilliant sunshine through the gauzy cloud cover. Snow cover reducing to the thin strips of Belleayre Mountain.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
34F at 9am, windy with clear skies and brilliant sunshine. Yesterday’s slush had hardened into a crust overnight and deep foot and tyre prints in the mud had frozen over. 44F by noon and warm in the sunshine.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
I host a live radio show on WIOX in Roxbury, New York on alternate Monday mornings at 9am and every other week I attempt to quantify a different subject with or without a guest. I’ve interviewed some erudite, intriguing people. One of these characters was Randal Doane, who called into my show on Monday, which was about the state of radio and featured guests Chris Hensley and Joe Piasek. He has written a recent history of FM radio and The Clash called Stealing All Transmissions: A Secret History of the Clash, published by PM Press.
Radio is a tricky subject because most young people tell me they don’t listen to it anymore unless they’re in a car. Most people I meet get their music from Spotify or Pandora and forgo any talk radio. Of course, now “new media” is now the thing: podcasts and video.
WIOX FM Radio is a little enclave of eccentricity in a world awash with polarised talk-radio and MOR rock and to promote our little slice of country eclecticism we are having a benefit and panel discussion in which Randal Doane will be keynote speaker. So, it’s a punk-addled night that’s being hosted at Spillian, our favourite Catskills Victorian mansion with some of the weirdest, most opinionated characters the mountains have to offer. It’ll be like any other night down the pub on any London high street in the seventies. Just leave the crystal chandeliers alone, alright? Join us for an evening of “friendship, provocative conversation, music and no small amount of partying…”.
Stealing All Transmissions:
An Evening of Local Celebrity, Subversive Commentary,
Community Radio and Fancy Cuisine
Saturday March 21, 6:00pm at Spillian
50 Fleischmanns Heights Road, Fleischmanns, NY 12430
A benefit for WIOX Community Radio
$50 donation. Limited seating.
Reservations: 607-326-3900
40F at 9am, mostly cloudy, with glimpses of the sun, with light wind. Icicles drip from the rafters as the cloud clears into wisps by noon and the snow shrivels slowly into the grass. Farmers clear piles of slush out of their gulleys with back hoes. 48F at 1.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski A Tom Otterness sculpture somewhere in Idaho
Scrolling through back issues of Brain Pickings this week, I stumbled upon the post entitled “How To Avoid Work” and read it with interest. My eye lingered on one quotation in the article: “Your life is too short and too valuable to fritter away in work”. The artist in me agrees with this sentiment but my other half is too pragmatic not to find it irksome. Frequently paired with this idea is the notion of only “doing what you love” and the pursuit of this idyll. Because Upstate Dispatch is devoted to the city folk who are making the country their home and their business, I decided to ask the question: what is work?
36F at 9am quickly rising to 40F by 9.30am. Hazy sky being burnt through by the morning sun. Mud season is upon us. Update: a high of 50F in the afternoon, which quickly became overcast and grey for the remainder of the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am Yesterday’s footprints frozen into the ground
34F at 8am and clear, sunny skies. By mid-morning, pillowy cloud cover had rolled through allowing the sun only brief guest appearances. Update: Clear skies again by noon and 40F, turning dirt roads to mud.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
Gusty and 36F at noon and maple syrup tapping has begun in the Catskills region. Bright and sunny despite cloud cover: the landscape appears to be under a giant light box. A strong, squally flurry blew through for an hour or so at 1pm whipping up loose powder into tornados. The clocks went forward an hour last night.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.40pm
© J.N. Urbanski
A friend in NYC asked me last year “don’t you get bored up there?” There’s this mis-conception that we’re a bit dull up here in the mountains, not edgy enough or uncultured. Not so, my friends, for right on my doorstep, literally a hop, skip and jump is the Spills and Sunday night, March 15th, there’ll be live jazz featuring Eric Rosen, Nina Sheldon and Rich Syracuse. What better way to round off the week than lounging around in the Spillian bar listening to live jazz? Spillian, a place to revel, is a unique location in that it’s a boutique hotel that’s wild at heart and a-fire with desire to make you dream, play and “imagine past what you think is possible”. The only goal of proprietors Leigh Melander and Mark Somerfield is that you revel. Last time I meandered with Melander at the Spills, I started to read aloud from a Charles Bukowski novel and instead of being politely shushed and shuffled into a corner, I was given a piano accompaniment (until a dog started howling). For the second year in a row, Spillian has been hosting Soup Sundays and Soup Salons with Voices From the Catskills co-produced by Chris Hensley, a music industry veteran. The Catskills is the place where artists and producers come to produce the entertainment they love and despite our sleepy reputation most of us are crushing it.
Next Sunday at Spillian:
26F at 10.30am with bright rays shining through gaps in the fast-moving clouds. 32F at 1.30pm and partially cloudy. Update: an extended, disheartening flurry of snow from 3.30pm to 5pm and overcast for the rest of the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
18F with cloudless, azure skies and brilliantly sunny at 10am.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.30am The Solar Array at the Catskill Center covered in snow
A nippy 18F at 9am: quite the plummet from an overnight high of 36F at 11pm last night. The chill, still air has formed a crust of impenetrable ice over the snow. The birch obsession continues, a smear of peeling peach in an otherwise monochrome landscape.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
Overnight winds threw foot-high drifts of icy snow against the house but hardly anything on the car. 23F at 9am: calm and gloomy. 36F by 1pm with rolling, grey cloud cover, the sun having made a valiant attempt to emerge, but only lasting a few minutes.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
22F at 9am rising to 26F mid-morning with the sun barely discernible through the haze. An overcast, dull day enlivened only by a Cuban sandwich. Mid-afternoon snowfall with a winter weather advisory in effect forecasting ice and sleet. Update: 18F and heavily snowing by 5.30pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 5pm “Nevermind about the hail hitting your eyeballs. Throw this stick.”
24F at 9am with hazy cloud covering the sun like thin gauze. Somehow it manages to be bright and enigmatic morning even with the cloud. Overnight snow laid white accents on high branches that sprinkled powder the wind. The creamy peach colour of peeling birch trees stand out against the snow and reflect the sunlight.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
Lightly but steadily snowing at 8am, overcast and grey, but still much warmer at 25F by 10am. Perfect Sunday for a walk with the dog, with the snow continuing for most of the afternoon. Update: Snow continued for the rest of the afternoon and into the night with moderate winds.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
18F at 11.30am with clear skies that dissolve to haze on the horizon. Bright and sunny. 22F at 1.30pm: the arctic torturer recedes north like a winter shadow at dawn.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
14F at 9am, bright and sunny, rising to 18F by 2pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
12F at 8.30am and partly cloudy, rising to 16F by noon. The arctic deep freeze is granting a modicum of relief, like the torturer taking his coffee break.
© Margaret Helthaler Thunder Hill, Grahamsville
© J.N. Urbanski 5.30pm Sunset Park Brooklyn
© J.N. Urbanski 7.15am Brooklyn
When cabin fever sets in, sometimes there’s nothing to do but jump in the car and drive to New York City. Book an evening or two with friends, feed sushi to your dog, drink with a million old friends in your favourite bar and exaggerate like a true New Yorker. Driving in the city sharpens the mind as much as a good 25-mile assault course and, once you’ve survived the hair-raising journey, you’ll only be in the city for a few hours when the opportunity for a robust debate will present itself. Quirky customs and foibles are brought vividly into focus when you don’t live here. Strangers receive smiles with downright fascination and will swerve graciously out of the way for your gorgeous dog, but not for you. In fact, NYC dog lovers will converse with your dog like an old, dear friend and completely ignore the human on the end of the leash. Stern police officers on the RFK Bridge will take your toll without returning your gaze and then, out of the blue, light up like a five-year-old and yell: “HEY PUPPY!” after spotting your dog in the back seat.
There’s such a lot to miss about city life: furniture on the street (covered in snow); street vendors selling old, pristine issues of Life Magazine for five dollars; Wholefoods; opening up a coffee shop 7am, for a large tea, croissant and dog biscuit; Strand Bookstore; exciting visits to Manhattan offices bringing back old memories; sushi; La Duree macarons; the sprawling Brooklyn Navy Yards; cyclists; roof farms; the dulcet, reassuring tones of NPR on the radio.
12F with hazy sunshine at 8.30am.
© Margaret Helthaler Rondout Reservoir, Grahamsville
Horrible overnight lows of -17F, causing the rafters to issue the odd cracking sound or the occasional loud bang. -10F at 7am, quickly rising to 0F by 8am and 10F in the sun by 9.30am. Sunshine blazing through a white, gossamer haze and turning the haze to silky ribbons by noon.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
10F and gusty at 8am, with powder being blown all over the roads and a thick, white blanket of snow lain over the countryside. A mostly bright morning, with multifarious cloud cover rolling over in waves. Maple tapping should be in full swing. A bone-chilling, windy -2F by 6.30pm with temperatures predicted to plummet to -17F this evening.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am Lonely maple syrup stand that we’ll return to in the Spring…
A balmy 30F at 10am with white light burning through the hazy cloud: a brief respite from the pipe cracking, tree splitting, shoulder hunching, crushing tyranny of the 2015 deep freeze. No wind. The arctic spectre seems to save its wind like a trump card for the coldest, darkest moments. Clear with brilliant sunshine and 34F by the afternoon.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
12F cloudy and snowing by midday. Heavy powdery snow and whiteout by mid-afternoon with freezing, blustery winds. Got wood?
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Overnight winds had fashioned the snow into intricate patterns. 2F at 9am and blustery. Sun breaking through the hazy cloud. Update: 10F at 1.30pm with periodic gusts of frigid wind.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
9F at 7am, lightly snowing and cloudy: knee deep snow. The snow had stopped by 10am, it became clearer over lunchtime until the sun broke through hazy cloud by 2pm. Trees creaked and cracked in the wind as it whipped up powdery tornados. Laundry day feels like its getting further and further away…
© J.N. Urbanski Wishful thinking…
The deep freeze continues: -6F at 8am with more snow predicted for the day. Brilliant sunshine rising to 23F by 3.30pm.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
0F at dawn, more bitterly freezing temperatures only rising to 16F at midday. Many exasperated New Englanders who are bearing the brunt of this week’s arctic chill, having been made prisoners by low hanging icicles.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
Overnight lows of -6F continued into morning “rising” to zero by 10am. Throughout the region, dawn lows were reported anywhere from -14F to -25F. Clear and sunny.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
6F by 9.30am with blustery winds and sunshine arriving by lunchtime. New England got the worst of the deep freeze allegedly. Update: rising to 7F by mid-afternoon, but feels like -23F. More cabin fever…
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 Bell by Nousaku, Japanese master metalworkers dating back to 1609.
© Lori Robin at Cheezehound Headquarters
7F at 9.30am, with yet more snow. Perfect snuggling weather.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718
Cabin Fever! Overnight lows in the negative figures: -2F rising to 0F by morning. Some sunshine making up for the frigid temperatures. Only the brave, and dog owners, venture outside. Update to come.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 1pm Catskill Cuisine post by Milton Glaser. “Should you call that meeting?” poster by Wendy McNaughton.
© J.N. Urbanski
It’s easy to get stuck in a rut, especially when one has enormous financial commitments. Moreover, if you have cabin fever, it will be compounding any feelings of stagnation as this fresh snowstorm moves in. Many of us are afraid to take a vacation or even lunch breaks. Some of us feel we can’t leave our jobs because of hefty student debt. It’s tempting to approach a certain age or milestone and resign with a sigh, thinking “this is it”.
It doesn’t have to be, however. Even the slightest actions or chance meetings can trigger profound alterations in your life.
Tips:
21F and cloudy with a chance of more snow. Another snowstorm on the way… as if that needed mentioning: more snow sweeps through the Catskills mid-morning. Update: light but steady snow fell into the afternoon.
© Erik Johanson/@halcott718 8.30am
© Fernando Delgado 12.30pm
14F and bright with clouds rolling in mid- morning.
© MGP&D
A bright morning with more overnight snow and 30F at 10.30am.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
© J.N. Urbanski
Years ago, a new country neighbor confided that whenever her husband went away on business she slept with a loaded shotgun by the bed, but I believe in accidents, sleepwalking and all the other disasters that Hollywood screenwriters can mustre. A shotgun only wakes you up after it has blown off your leg when you knocked it over reaching for a glass of water. A dog, however, wakes you up before something happens (or will ever happen).
Enter Alfie, my first dog, who barks when someone crosses the street a mile down the road, has a sense of smell so strong he can tell that the UPS guy will be here in an hour and follows me from room to room like a family member who’s afraid I’ll commit suicide. I only have to look out the window with a slight frown and he goes to the window and starts barking ferociously. Last night I gasped at a movie and he awoke with a start and issued a dead stare right in my eyes with one ear cocked until he was confident that all was well. He takes his position in the household as Head of Security as seriously as a Black Lab/Shepherd mix can. In Alfie is combined both the sheer comedy of a Black Labrador with the bossiness of a Shepherd. More important, as a first-time dog owner I don’t even see myself as the master of this dog; he’s not my dog, rather I’m his human. I can’t be alone in believing that the master should not be picking up faeces off the road and carrying it in a little bag. No, I am the servant for the next… ever.