Getting crisp, but still warm in the sun, despite giant clouds and a high around 60F.
Daily Catskills: 10/12/23
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Tag Archives: Country Living
Daily Catskills: 10/04/23
Another scorcher: a high of 86F with a virtually cloudless sky, save for the odd scattering of cotton balls in the distance. Fall and Summer collide to make a gorgeous day.
Daily Catskills: 09/10/23
Muggy, still and overcast with low cloud and a high of 77F. Late afternoon drizzle gave way to some patches of blue. A barely discernible reddening of the landscape. The greens aren’t giving up yet.
Catskills Conversations: Gary Mayer
“Are you coming to the drawing tonight?” Gary Mayer asks me. I’m honored to be part of a Catskills figure drawing group with local artists such as Steve Burnett, Gary, Peter Mayer, and Sandy Finkenberg.
“No,” I say. “I’m going to a potluck dinner”.
“Well, you won’t find potluck in here,” he says as he steps up into his studio. “More like shit out of luck,” he laughs, highlighting a disparity between the lightness of his personality and the intensity of his work. He’s quick to laugh, good company and chatty, but this magnanimity belies the intensity of his imagery. “I have a wild imagination,” he frowns, nodding gravely. “I didn’t sleep a lot as a kid”. We have something in common. “Me, too,” I say. It’s a little exhausting. But I’m keen to keep him laughing because all the profile pictures I see of him make him look flummoxed, for want of a better word.
His general demeanor is nonchalance, however, like his image: hey, look at this shit I did. I don’t get it either. *Shrugs* The ad for his new gallery in Margaretville named Art Up is photo of a handwritten note, for example. I get the sense that his reward comes from expressing himself, while painting, rather than the final work being appreciated.
Continue readingDaily Catskills: 04/25/23
Cold, with a high of 48F and a chilly wind. A mostly gloomy day with the sun emerging late afternoon like it had spent all day a work. A beautiful evening.
Daily Catskills: 10/27/22
A cloudy morning, clearing up to a sunny afternoon with a high of 57F. Fall is over at higher elevations, but there are still hardwoods hanging on to their leaves downhill.
Daily Catskills: 10/25/22
A little gloomy, with muddy puddles of overnight rain but rising to a balmy high of 71F.
Daily Catskills: 10/21/22
Another crisp day under a bowl of clear blue, warming up to a high of 60F. The flaming red oak tree holds its ground with its yellow and green neighbors amidst the brush of a waning fall landscape.
Daily Catskills: 10/20/22
Bright and sunny with a nippy wind and a high of 53F. Big dome of clear blue with the odd remnant of wispy cloud.
Daily Catskills: 10/17/22
A dingy start to the week, with a sky like washed ink and a high of 55F.
Daily Catskills: 10/16/22
Bright and breezy, mostly clear skies and a high of 63F.
Daily Catskills: 10/12/22
Sunny and humid, mostly clear skies and a high of 66F.
Daily Catskills: 10/09/22
Peak fall colors, but only brief periods of sun in which to showcase their glory. A nippy wind and a high of 58F.
Daily Catskills: 10/06/22
Sun, at last! Mostly cloudless with a high of 74F. A beautiful fall day.
Daily Catskills: 09/29/22
Thick cloud cover clearing by late afternoon. Humid but chilly, with a high of 62F. Yellow leaves falling.
Daily Catskills: 09/26/22
Dull and overcast, mostly rainy with brief periods of sunshine, with cloud cover clearing at sunset, a rainbow and a high of 65F.
Catskills Sandwich: Bull & Garland’s Scotch Egg
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Behold, the Bull & Garland Scotch Egg. As a native Brit, I have to say, the egg couldn’t be any more authentic than if we were in England, at a pub, enjoying the rain and warm beer. I don’t know how they get the egg to be runny, but it’s a joy to see the hearty, local, orange yolks running over the warm sausage meat. The grainy mustard isn’t even necessary because the dish is delicious all by itself.
Daily Catskills: 06/02/18
A foggy, dewy, humid morning trawls into the afternoon for a high of 80F and a double shot of humidity. Steamy.
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Daily Catskills: 04/28/18
A sunny morning filled with hope and enthusiasm, with a high of 65F by afternoon, followed by late afternoon showers and more gloom with brief flashes of sunshine. A vivid, beautiful sunset chased by mist sinking enigmatically into the valleys at dusk.
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Daily Catskills: 04/22/18
A high of 62F, a cloudless, blue sky with a strong, cooling breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 11/20/17
A high of 33F and misty with light snow flurries all day.
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Daily Catskills: 10/29/17
60F humid, overcast with blustery winds and dashing rain getting stormier going into the evening.
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Daily Catskills: 10/23/17
Warm, windy and humid with a moody, overcast dusk and a dip in temperatures. The last of fall is brassy, with dull copper tones, dashes of burnt orange and sienna in the half-empty brush. Apples hang in abundance on bare trees like winter ornaments: a forgotten, wild harvest.
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Daily Catskills: 10/10/17
75F, humid, sunny with hazy cloud, lazy breeze, blazing fall colors.
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Daily Catskills: 09/28/17
58F by 6.30am, balmy with clear skies and sunrise ushering in dappled cloud. 65F by mid-afternoon.
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Daily Catskills: 09/26/17
A high of 85F with morning fog disappearing into the mountains. Sunny with scant cloud. The sunflowers express how we feel about summer ending.
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Daily Catskills: 09/25/17
A high of 90F, blazing hot and humid.
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Daily Catskills: 09/24/17
A high of 84F with clear skies of hazy blue. Sunday scorcher.
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Heritage Apple Cake
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If you need something to do with all the heritage apples that are falling all over the Catskills now, here’s a recipe passed on to me by Tamara Ehlin of the Forsyth BnB in Kingston. This recipe is gorgeous because a sugary, chewy crust forms on the top of the cake and gradually softens all the way down to its fruity bottom.This cake is as wild as our apples.
However you add the fruit, it still ends up at the base of the cake. I didn’t put enough apples in the little loaf pictured above because whenever you do this recipe it will feel like you’re putting too much fruit in. The batter barely covers the apples and you have to press the mixture down before you put it in the oven. I made a larger cake by doubling the ingredients and it came out perfectly with all the fruit sunk to the bottom.
This recipe is good for soft and stone fruit too.
Fruit Cake
1 cup AP flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
4 oz butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp almond extract
2 eggs
2 cups sliced fruit (a mix of tart and sweet works best, like sour cherries, plums, peaches, blueberries, or peeled apple)
Soften the butter and whip it together with the sugar, vanilla, almond extract. Add the two eggs and beat them in. Mix the whole mixture well. Sift the flour and baking powder and add it into the butter/sugar mix gradually. Mix until you have a batter. The batter will be very stiff. Once you have a smooth batter, stir in the apples and mix well. Add to a greased loaf tin and bake on 350 for about 40 minutes. (Note that cooking time could be longer or shorter depending on the depth or shape of the pan. If the pan is a flatter cake pan, cooking time will be less.)
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Daily Catskills: 09/21/17
An 80F high, humid and bright despite hazy clouds, with a faint breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 09/20/17
A high of 80F, humid and overcast with late afternoon sun emerging. Summer’s rolling to a steamy end.
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Do It Yourself
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One minute your making nut butter out of hazelnuts and saving seeds; the next minute you’re replacing the siding on the house. Country living is the great educator.
Daily Catskills: 09/16/17
A balmy morning at 65F by 9am. The morning fog rolled away to reveal trees, bushes, forest floor and fields liberally bestrewn with lacy spiders’ webs, as if the forest had been dressed for halloween overnight.
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Daily Catskills: 09/14/17
A high of 75F, humid and overcast with scene-stealing, multifarious clouds leading to isolated showers and a balmy evening. Dashes of red appearing on the landscape like hot pepper seasoning. Moody.
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Daily Catskills: 09/03/17
Rainy and 61F by mid-afternoon with swirling mist and more rain.
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Catskills Links: Labor Day Edition
Tonight
Burlesque is back in the Catskills. Tonight at Union Grove Distillery beginning at 8.30pm. Buy tickets here, or they are available on the door. Seating is first come, first served. Just Shop Boutique, across the road, is open until 8pm.
Saturday 2nd
John Burroughs Woodchuck Lodge hosts its penultimate Wild Saturday at 1pm at Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury entitled Face to Face with Raptors, in which Annie Mardiney, federally licensed wildlife “rehabilitator”, shares her deep passion by bringing hawks, owls, and falcons to show visitors.
Family Day at the Catskill Interpretive Center: bird watching, hiking, crafts, rock painting, learning to identify animal footprints and more from the natural world.
Logic and Structure at the Painters Gallery in Fleischmanns, a group show featuring Beth Caspar, Susan Spencer Crowe, Joan Grubin, Robert James, Wanda Kossak, Don Muchow, Margaret Neill, Paula Quinon.
Saturday night sees the annual lighting of the fire towers at 9am. Find out where the best places to view them are. The Catskills Fire Tower system celebrated 100 years of watching for wild fires over the Catskills this summer.
Sunday 3rd
Sunday is Bovina Farm Day, featuring farm animals, a corn maze, the scarecrow contest and vendors selling and sampling locally produced products.
Apple pie contest is between 2-3pm. $6 per car and a full day of family fun!
Next week:
From September 6th to 12th: Watershed Stories from the Catskill Center, . Led by Lisa Jacobson, these workshops were designed to provide a unique holistic, visual and written product based on “Art as an EcoSystem”. To do this, participants recycled beautiful old books into a retelling of water, the New York Watershed and its interconnections with everything else.
September 7th: Catskill Cuisine with Chef Rob Handel at the Catskill Interpretive Center in Mount Tremper.
And…
A new bus service to bring people to the Catskills.
Foraging: Lion’s Mane
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There are several reasons to get excited about Lion’s Mane. First of all, it’s arrestingly beautiful, and when you spot it in the forest it appears to be luminous, as if a beam of light is shining through the forest canopy directly onto it. Lion’s Mane cascades over a log like a dreamy waterfall, frozen in time, with it’s milky stalactites. It’s also called the pom-pom mushroom for the obvious reason.
Second, it can’t really be mistaken for anything else. Some guides tell you to compare it to the poisonous yellow-tipped coral because when Lion’s Mane gets old the tips turn yellow, but the coral grows upwards. Even as a novice mushroom hunter though, I was pretty certain that what I had found (pictured above) was the real thing and that thought was backed up by two others more experienced than I am. (I have just eaten it, so if it’s not, it was nice knowing you.)
Furthermore, you can cultivate Lion’s Mane and it is widely said to have medicinal benefits, like Shitake and Reishi. Experts say that it improves neurological function and alleviates anxiety.
On top of that, it’s utterly delicious, tasting (raw) like a more meaty, fragrant, cooked lobster, with exactly the same texture.
If you’re looking to eat less seafood, you can buy kits to cultivate this exquisite delicacy and grow it yourself. Once you’ve tasted it, it’ll seem like a no-brainer. This mushroom is about 20% protein.
To prepare it, I sliced off the top part that had a lot of forest debris in it. Then broke off about five clumps of the tendrils and washed them thoroughly. (You never know what animal might have peed on it.) Then I separated the tendrils until I had what looked like about almost a cup of loose lobster meat and sweat it in butter. Then I added three beaten eggs and scrambled the mixture. You can see a piece of raw mushroom top left (below).
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Daily Catskills: 08/28/17
A high of 72F and overcast with periods of sunshine. Crisp overnight lows and chilly mornings.
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Daily Catskills: 08/18/17
Surprise! More heavy rain. A high of 80F, with oppressive humidity, a heavy blanket of cloud and mist swirling over the mountains like the ghost of summers past. Steamy.
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Daily Catskills: 08/16/17
A chilly, but humid morning at 66F, with mist and clouds dueling under the rising sun.
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A Pit Stop at The Forsyth
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When you have frequent summer guests to your rural home, who come from far and wide, Exit 19 in Kingston on Route 87 is a good pit stop for travelers who are hungry, tired or cranky from the long drive. Stylish, comfortable B&Bs are popping up all over this city, which offers some excellent attractions.
I popped into The Forsyth, a charming and elegant B&B in the historic Rondout area of Kingston, for a look around with owner Tamara. Her friend Allison cooked me a crispy-bottomed, fried, runny, local egg, which I mopped up with a date scone and washed down with a cup of Earl Grey. Local eggs are vividly yellow, sweet and creamy. Rondout, in the city’s waterfront area, has a sophisticated vibe and is walkable with historic landmarks, public art, antique stores and restaurants. The Stockade District, just a brief taxi-ride away from the waterfront, has bars and clubs that will suit your house guests from NYC who need their noisy friday night before they settle in for a country weekend. Continue reading
Daily Catskills: 08/13/17
An 84F high and sunny despite those ubiquitous clouds and their ever eccentric formations.
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Daily Catskills: 08/07/17
An unexpectedly chilly morning and a rainy afternoon. A 64F high. Migliorelli’s farm stand also sells perfect rainy day Italian desserts like chocolate pudding and crème brûlée for days like this.
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Daily Catskills: 08/06/17
74F by mid-afternoon and cloudy with a cool breeze. Periods of sunshine ripen the hazelnuts.
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Daily Catskills: 08/02/17
Early morning mist rolls out to reveal laden clouds. All-day thunder leads to torrential afternoon rain. 72F by 1.30pm.
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Daily Catskills: 08/01/17
87F by mid-afternoon and sunny. A scorcher despite billowing clouds and sprinkles of rain.
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Daily Catskills: 07/29/17
72F and sunny with a cool breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 7/28/17
Morning sun! Misty clouds wafting over head with a warm, gentle breeze and birdsong. Summer’s back for a while, with today’s high almost 80F.
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Daily Catskills: 07/27/17
72F by mid-afternoon with rain for most of the day, only stopping about 3pm. Toad weather.
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Daily Catskills: 07/26/17
Chilly and overcast, warming up at lunchtime, for a high of 71F. Dramatic clouds with brief sunshine.
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Daily Catskills: 07/25/17
A 62F high, humid with torrential rain for most of the day until late afternoon.
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Daily Catskills: 07/24/17
A high of 62F after a misty morning. Gloomy, chilly afternoon with rain showers except for a brief, sunny interlude at lunchtime.
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Daily Catskills: 07/23/17
Warm and humid all day until some brief, but heavy, late afternoon rains leave us with 78F by 5.30pm. An onion blooms.
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Daily Catskills: 07/22/17
82F by 1pm, humid and overcast.
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Catskills Weekend: July 22nd
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Saturday July 22nd
Phoenicia
You may just be able to register in time for Taste the World, at 1.30pm on Saturday – if it’s not sold out – at the Phoenicia Library. Sample a medley of traditional foods that The Recipe Hunters learned to make in the homes of locals from around the world. Hear about the stories of people behind these recipes. ADVANCED REGISTRATION required, please call the library 688-7811. 48 Main Street, Phoenicia, NY 12464.
Hobart
Hosted by Transition Catskills, Hobart Methodist Church is holding a Repair Cafe from 10am to 2pm. Take your broken household items, like lamps, vacuum cleaners, small appliances and clothing to be fixed. Hobart Methodist Church, 186 Maple Avenue, Hobart, NY 13788
Bovina
Gardens of Bovina Tour, hosted by Bovina Historical Society will take place from 10am to 4pm. 124 Bob Hall Road, Bovina Center, NY 13740. This is a rare chance to get an insider’s glimpse of one of the hippest areas in the Catskills. Feel free to bring a picnic lunch.
Arkville
If you are interested in becoming a member of the non-profit Catskill Center, they are holding a members-only event entitled The Hudson River School and the Ice Age with speakers and geologists Johanna and Robert Titus. The Catskills Mountains were once at the bottom of the sea where the Bahamas are now. Found out how they got here, Saturday 22nd, 7pm to 9pm. 43355 State Route 28, Arkville, NY 12406. Membership is $35 for individuals and $50 for families.
Andes
Wayside Cider are hosting a Wallabout Fire Roasted Beef Dinner at 6pm Wayside Cider, 55 Redden Lane, Andes, NY 13731. $60 cash at the door.
Monday 24th July
Pine Hill
The Zephyr in Pine Hill is hosting a trivia game night. from 7pm to 10pm. 302 Main Street, Pine Hill, NY 12465. $5 margaritas and some delicious local eats.