80F by mid-afternoon, hot and sunny.
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Daily Catskills: 08/20/17
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Tag Archives: I love NY
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: 08/17/17
80F by mid-afternoon with distant, sailing clouds. Blackberries ripening in the sun.
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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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Daily Catskills: 08/15/17
After heavy overnight rain, a chilly morning with foggy cloud settled over the landscape like a blanket. A hazy, humid day with a high of 75F.
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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: 08/14/17
A chilly start: 58F at 8am, rising to 75F by mid-afternoon and soupy with clouds like churning milk.
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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: 08/12/17
A sunny morning, despite big, bossy clouds. 78F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze through the trees. A lovely day with some evening sprinkles.
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Daily Catskills: 08/11/17
79F, dark, humid and smothered with rippled, blue milk glass clouds. If today’s weather were a movie, it would be a moody film noir: sultry and begging for a wet ending. Update: it got its wet ending: a thorough rain shower mid-evening.
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A Summer Party in Halcottsville
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On Saturday August 12th at 4pm, Ella’s Mercantile is having a summer party in Halcottsville, a favorite haunt of mine. It’s an exquisitely picturesque haven on a large boating lake, through which the historic railroad (DURR) runs. It’s postcard perfect. I’ve taken watercolor classes there; participated in a plein air painting group (with or without attendant goats); interviewed the reverends of the church for a local publication; exhibited my prints in The Grange and tasted tea with a friend. You can stay at Susan’s Pleasant Pheasant Farm and kayak on Lake Wawaka. There’s even a fledgling Shakespeare Company in the works. The whole village is arguably one of the Catskills most beautiful places. Continue reading
Daily Catskills: 08/09/17
77F by mid-afternoon: a wrestling match between the sun and potbellied clouds that had waned by the evening.
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Daily Catskills: 08/08/17
Mostly sunny and bright despite with an armada of voluminous clouds. 74F by mid-afternoon. The rain takes a holiday.
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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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Catskills Trails: Huckleberry Loop
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Back on the trails again, in the pines, welcomed by fresh, dewy cobwebs stroking my face and hands like ghostly fingers warning me that I’m on my own. This time Huckleberry Loop: a very long, meandering trail that intersects with Dry Brook Ridge in two places, that was deserted except for a special neighbor who arrived to walk her dogs along the loop’s road. Sometimes good things happen when you dither in the road with a map. Continue reading
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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On Mushroom Hunting
After yesterday’s torrential rain, our forest floor erupted with mushrooms, of all shape, size, name and color, like twinkling jewels amidst the undergrowth and quite an extraordinary sight to behold.
Beautiful, ethereal Ghostpipe (or Indian Pipe, pictured above) has proliferated like never before seen in our forest. To see a venerable plant that is ordinarily quite rare, this seems magical. Not technically a mushroom, it’s rather a plant that doesn’t photosynthesize, devoid of chlorophyll and taking its nutrients from a delicate balance of conditions: decaying deciduous leaf matter, conifer trees and an underground fungus network, in perfect measure. It’s pretty much impossible to cultivate because it’s so sensitive and venerated because it’s an analgesic, for physical and emotional pain, that is over harvested. To be presented with such a plant in abundance feels like a gift, so I’ll be harvesting a small amount this year to make a tincture. Continue reading
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.
Everyday Philosophy
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I walked down a mountain today to the Gilding Bee at The Painters Gallery in Fleischmanns, run by Laura Sue King.
If you don’t understand the arts, like contemporary art for example, or you can’t see a use for it, The Gilding Bee couldn’t be of more help to guide you and it runs for another week. The object of this project, funded by a grant administered by the Roxbury Arts Group, was to gild small, familiar items (that fit in the palm of your hand) to be included in an exhibition on July 30th in the gallery.
Coating every day objects in gold leaf elevates the ordinary but necessary into something exceptional, reaffirming the value of every day items, and why not? The whole project highlights the importance of art, friendship, community, and other things that seem trivial, or taken for granted, as we rush from place to place. It’s a small, symbolic way to celebrate the good in a world of bad. I bought dice, a bottle, pieces of old Prague pavement that had come loose, and a lipstick.
Lipstick: The lipstick effect is an economic theory holding that during difficult economic times women spend more money on goods like lipstick because it’s a cheap way of making yourself feel good. According to The Economist: “Believers in the lipstick theory trace the phenomenon back to the Depression, when cosmetic sales increased by 25%, despite the convulsing economy”. Something you might think is irrelevant, like lipstick, has had its own economic theory for almost 100 years.
Pieces of Prague Pavement: we went on vacation to Europe seven years ago and, as we wandered the streets of Prague, inebriated on Czech lager, we took a real, concrete souvenir: part of the city. Adding some gold to these two innocuous, square cobblestones took me back in time. I remembered the stews, the borscht, the bridge, and the stunning beauty of Prague. We’re told that material things are burdensome and we shouldn’t get attached to them, but as you get older, even small objects retain memories for you that the brain has long forgotten.
The gold dice represent people who think they got rich simply by working hard and being smart, when success takes a lot of luck, like being born into a wealthy family.
The Gilding Bee runs for another week: next Monday, Wednesday and Thursday from 1pm to 5pm at The Painters Gallery, Main Street, Fleischmanns, NY 12430. Suggested donation of $5.
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Daily Catskills: 07/20/17
85F by mid-afternoon, sweaty and humid with a mix of sun and cloud. Late afternoon showers.
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Daily Catskills: 07/19/17
85F by mid-afternoon, warm in the sun, pleasant in the shade.
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Daily Catskills: 07/18/17
After a moody morning: 84F by mid-afternoon, sunny, warm with distant clouds. Blueberries ripening.
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Storms & Sunsets
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I’m told that, while we were away this month, there was continual rain and yesterday evening, after a dash of threatening thunder, we had a spectacular storm before dusk. The sun’s last rays were caught, as if trapped, between an intensely deep, blue-gray storm cloud and more white clouds above. The rays were then dragged across the sky, rippling the white clouds while they followed this angry, gray mass as it sailed over Slide Mountain issuing streaks of lightning as the sun set.
Our ridge was bathed in deep red and the black lab sniffed the air as he chased the storm down the hill, keen to see it move on. Can dogs smell thunder and lightning? If so, he got a big whiff of it last night. A gorgeous, enigmatic evening.
Daily Catskills: 07/17/17
84F by mid-afternoon with the morning sun disappearing under thick clouds, and a dash of late afternoon thunder. Humid.
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Daily Catskills: 07/16/17
83F by mid-afternoon, sunny with distant, fluffy clouds.
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The Gilding Bee in Fleischmanns
Photo courtesy of Laura Sue King
This week at The Painters Gallery in Fleischmanns starting Monday July 17th at 1pm for two weeks, a community goldleafing project begins, hosted by Laura Sue King called The Gilding Bee. No reservations are needed. You can turn up at The Painters on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1pm to 5pm for the next two weeks. The project will culminate in an exhibition on July 30th.
Laura will provide the gold leaf and found ceramic, glass and metal objects, but you are welcome to bring your own. Other materials that are gold leaf friendly are plastic, wood and paper. It’s preferable if the object fits in the palm of your hand as the gold is real and we want to make sure there’s enough for all. Participants will be able to take their object home with them.
This is a chance to make everyday items into something exceptional with members of the community: a symbol of the importance of friendship and the significance of art, to put on the mantle piece. It could be a rock, pebble, small pot, or bottle.
The Painters Gallery, 1109 Main Street, Fleischmanns, NY 12430. Suggested donation of $5 will be waived for those who cannot pay.
The Gilding Bee is made possible with funds from the Decentralization Grant Program, a regrant program of the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature and administered by the Roxbury Arts Group. Sponsored by the MARK Project.
Daily Catskills: 06/30/17
84F by mid-afternoon and humid with refreshing afternoon rain.
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Daily Catskills: 06/28/17
55F at 8am, sunny, wet from overnight rain, rising to 70F by mid-afternoon with a flotilla of chubby clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/27/17
After a wet, gloomy morning, 67F by mid-afternoon and mostly sunny. Huge, thundering clouds quickly rolling through stealing the scene, cracking lightning and later issuing some torrential, late afternoon rain. Moody.
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Daily Catskills: 06/26/17
72F by mid-afternoon, bright and sunny. Mysterious mist is our regular morning visitor.
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Bill Birns at The 2nd Annual Book Fair at the CIC
Image: Mountain Arts Media, courtesy of Bill Birns
On Saturday June 24th at 1.30pm the Catskill Interpretive Center in Mount Tremper, Bill Birns will be speaking at the 2nd Annual Book Fair.
Bill will be reciting his epic poem Fleischmanns, a Poem (an Historical Imaginative Projection) that was published in three parts here on Upstate Dispatch. (Find Part 1 published here, Part 2: here and Part three: here.) Come and listen to Bill read his richly descriptive, poetic rendering of local history. Bill is a superb orator and listeners will be in for a treat.
Address: Maurice D Hinchey Catskill Interpretive Center, 5096 Route 28, Mount Tremper, NY 12457.
Daily Catskills: 06/19/17
Humid and sticky with periods of torrential rain, thunder and flooding throughout the day and throughout the mountains, caused by dense, milky, blue-hued clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/18/17
86F by mid-afternoon, hot and very humid with periods of sunshine through a veil of cloud, rain showers and a warm breeze. Sunset in the forest.
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Daily Catskills: 06/17/17
After a morning of rain: 77F by mid-afternoon with the sun burning through a veil of cloud.
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Catskills Conversations: Julia Reischel
© Joe Damone
Julia Reischel is a co-founder of the Watershed Post and resident of Margaretville.
JNU: What brought you to the Catskills?
JR: I came here because of my family. I’m not from here. I like to describe myself as a carpet-bagger [laughs]. Lissa, my wife, grew up here and has about six generations of family in the Margaretville area. When I started dating her in Boston, I knew pretty much immediately that I was going to end up here if I stuck with her, because she has this magnetic pull to this area. All her potential stories ended here. So the Catskills were in my future and when we got married we moved here. We started the Watershed Post, our now defunct news site that we ran for seven years.
Is The Watershed Post still up?
It’s up, but just not being updated. We’ll keep it up as a sort of archive and honestly, it’s Lissa’s call on that because I formally quit a while ago. [Laughs]
Did you have a contract with her? [Laughs]
We actually do have a contract in place.
That’s very sensible!
[Laughs] If we were going to have some sort of acrimonious split, one of us would have to buy out the other. What actually happened was that I decided to give her de facto control over it in exchange for not doing anything for it anymore. So I’m still technically part owner. She ran it by herself for a couple of months and came to the same conclusion that I did, which was that there’s no money in journalism. Continue reading
Daily Catskills: 06/14/17
80F by mid-afternoon, fresh and sunny.
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Daily Catskills: 06/13/17
89F by mid-afternoon, overcast, muggy with showers at 4pm. Hot and sweaty. Berry blossoms in abundance.
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Daily Catskills: 06/12/17
89F by mid-afternoon, sun blazing with hazy cloud moving in around dusk.
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Daily Catskills: 06/11/17
88F by mid-afternoon, hot and sunny with a cool breeze in the shade. Looks a like this will be a good year for apples.
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Daily Catskills: 06/10/17
80F by mid-afternoon, warm and sunny.
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Daily Catskills: 06/09/17
74F by mid-afternoon, mostly sunny with some cloud and a persistent, cool breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 06/07/17
70F by mid-afternoon with a summer breeze and a blue sky naked except for sporadic, plump clouds.
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Daily Catskills: 06/06/17
56F by mid-afternoon, overcast, with heavy rain clearing up late afternoon. Still chilly, but perfect for mushrooms and ducks.
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Daily Catskills: 06/04/17
54F by mid-afternoon, gloomy, chilly with continual afternoon rain.
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Daily Catskills: 06/03/17
66F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze and rolling, cotton wool clouds.
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