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A base layer of dirt, then grass, then a thick wedge of insulation and finally, twigs topped off with a small, vacated wasp’s nest and a large insect exoskeleton, probably a caterpillar/butterfly. A once crowded bird box now getting repaired and cleaned out for new tenants.
After an overnight frost dissolving into a misty morning, 70F by mid-afternoon and sunny.
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After a foggy start, 60F by mid-afternoon and warm in the sun.
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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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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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79F by mid-afternoon and sunny with hazy cloud. Cool in the shade. Splashes of red dot the landscape.
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80F by mid-afternoon, hot and sunny.
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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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77F by mid-afternoon: a wrestling match between the sun and potbellied clouds that had waned by the evening.
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Mostly sunny and bright despite with an armada of voluminous clouds. 74F by mid-afternoon. The rain takes a holiday.
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74F by mid-afternoon and cloudy with a cool breeze. Periods of sunshine ripen the hazelnuts.
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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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Chilly and overcast, warming up at lunchtime, for a high of 71F. Dramatic clouds with brief sunshine.
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A 62F high, humid with torrential rain for most of the day until late afternoon.
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85F by mid-afternoon, warm in the sun, pleasant in the shade.
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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.
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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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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© 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
80F by mid-afternoon, fresh and sunny.
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89F by mid-afternoon, overcast, muggy with showers at 4pm. Hot and sweaty. Berry blossoms in abundance.
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80F by mid-afternoon, warm and sunny.
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70F by mid-afternoon with a summer breeze and a blue sky naked except for sporadic, plump clouds.
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70F by mid-afternoon, humid and breezy, clouds ready to burst all day, mist crawling over mountains. Sultry.
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66F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze and rolling, cotton wool clouds.
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69F by mid-afternoon, bright and sunny.
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75F by mid-afternoon with rippled, early morning clouds evaporating in the brilliant sunshine.
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46F by mid-afternoon, humid and overcast with continual misty rain. A good day to forage, harvest, cook and preserve.
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51F by mid-afternoon, chilly, windy and overcast with a sunny afternoon.
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75F by mid-afternoon with hazy sunshine after a gloomy start to the day, following a few sombre, rainy days. Spring springs once more.
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© Victoria Weeks of Verglas Media – Usage prohibited without consent
UD: What brought you to the Catskills?
RA: My husband Mark and I would travel north from our Pennsylvania home just on a whim. This was before we had our daughter Isabella. We always ended up coming home from Lake Placid, the Adirondacks or wherever we ended up, through the Catskills. After we had our little girl and we weren’t traveling around the world anymore, we decided to get a vacation home here. Then once my daughter was of age to go to kindergarten, we made a decision to move here, so that she could start kindergarten here and not have to move mid-term.
57F by mid-afternoon, humid and gloomy. Still life with scents.
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50F at 9am, fog receding into the mountains leaving a dewy landscape. 61F by mid-afternoon with torrential early evening rain. Wet.
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© J.N. Urbanski 6/16/15 12.39
On my jaunts around the neighborhood, I regularly bump into people who love Upstate Dispatch. Last week, a reader told me: “I love the site! I just wish there was more of it”. Me too!
Upstate Dispatch takes hundreds of hours per month to research and write. All of the food and drink you see reviewed here has been paid for, with one exception, and where tickets are sold to local cooking, foraging, writing and art classes, they have been purchased. In the past, when we’ve had contributors, we have paid them. As I a writer, I believe artists and writers should not have to work for free. We are also an advertisement-free site, so we rely on donations.
If you love reading Upstate Dispatch, please consider donating. Future donations will fund a small summer arts and literary studio in the local village for Upstate Dispatch. We want to expand our coverage over the summer, move into the community, and revive the Catskills Conversations series, shedding more light on our local luminaries and their stories.
Lastly, I want to thank our past donors who have expressed their appreciation of Upstate Dispatch in a meaningful way. I’m sincerely and immensely grateful for the love!
Please find our donation page here.
Happy Spring!
J.N. Urbanski
55F by mid-afternoon, mostly clear and sunny with distant clouds on the horizon.
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79F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze and cotton wool clouds that turned grey and burst early evening.
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62F and sunny with wispy clouds. The forest springs to life under the hemlocks.
© J.N. Urbanski 10am
© J.N. Urbanski
I’m proud to have had the opportunity to contribute text and images to this year’s Catskills Food Guide published by the Watershed Post that hit the stands today. I’ve tried many of the region’s burgers and sandwiches for the WP. I’ve interviewed and photographed local producers and store-owners too, but the best assignment I’ve ever had was interviewing Ray Turner, an eclectic old-timer who traps eel on the Delaware River in a gigantic weir that he built with his own hands. The weir is truly to be seen to be believed – constructed with available stone and wood – and the man himself is a true Catskills character. He has a pet emu. We had some seriously eccentric exchanges. He only likes Black Labradors:
Him: “The only good dog is a lab, all the others are goats as far as I’m concerned.”
Me: “I LOVE goats!”
Him: “…”
I hadn’t been at his establishment an hour before he had me in a pair of thick rubber waders in a canoe out on the river.
Me: “None of this equipment likes water”.
Him: “No standing in the canoe”.
Pick up a copy of the Catskills Food Guide at any establishment in the Catskills. The guide includes a large pull-out, color map of the region detailing the places where you can eat, drink and shop locally.
© J.N. Urbanski
55F by mid-afternoon, chilly and overcast. Hazelnut catkins swaying in the breeze.
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55F, humid with overnight rain, mist lingering in the valleys. 61F and sunny with an afternoon armada of clouds sailing quickly like they’re on their way to somewhere much colder.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
80F scorcher, hazy, humid. Wading in cool streams, under waterfalls, shaded by pine trees.
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© J.N. Urbanski
Letters to a Young Farmer is both a compelling history and a vital road map – a reckoning of how we eat and farm; how the two can come together to build a more sustainable future; and why now, more than ever before, we need farmers”. And: “We are about to witness the largest retirement of farmers in U.S. history. There are now more farmers over the age of 75 than between the ages of 35 and 44″.
A story with a happy conclusion – an urban farmer saves his “gangsta garden”.
An article on how to combat ticks around your property.
The New Farmer’s Almanac Volume III from The Greenhorns, “360 pages of original agrarian content, essays, cartoons, imagery and historical snippets—harnesses the wisdom of over 120 contributors from our community of new farmers and ranchers”.
Will our senator, farm-friendly Kirsten Gillibrand run for President?
The US military “marches forward on clean energy”. New York State sees an 800% growth in solar power according to CNBC. On solar power and renewable energy for new jobs; a new solar experiment in Brooklyn; Panasonic makes a new solar panel for Tesla.
I have thought that a good test of civilization, perhaps one of the best, is country life.” John Burroughs
68F by mid-afternoon with wisps of cloud in an azure sky. Laundry swaying in the breeze like huge flags.
© J.N. Urbanski 3.40pm
A 45F high with a bitter wind and scattered woolly clouds under brilliant blue sky. The remnants of last night’s snow lurking in the shadows. Weather gone completely bonkers.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.40pm
36F at noon: thick mist, rushing rivers, overflowing tributaries, sloppy mud, snow until mid-afternoon. Spring on hold.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
38F by 2pm and overcast with persistent heavy rain throughout the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 4pm
60F by mid-afternoon with clear skies and flowing streams reflecting the blazing sun. Spring springs.
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Torrential overnight rains continued into morning and throughout the day with a high of 50F. Mist hanging over a drenched, humid landscape: large puddles, rushing rivers, streams, gullies. New green shoots point upwards like the beaks of little hungry chicks.
© J.N. Urbanski 5pm
49F by noon and cloudy with periods of sunshine warming a nascent landscape.
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We’re proud to announce that a framed Daily Catskills print will be offered in a Silent Auction and Art Exhibition at The Emerson in Brooklyn this Saturday organized by Melissa Irwin. It’s a privilege to be able to use this medium to raise money for charity. All proceeds from the event will be donated to Planned Parenthood, a 100-year-old institution that provides reproductive health services and cancer screening for millions of people every year. It was “founded on the revolutionary idea that women should have the information and care they need to live strong, healthy lives and fulfill their dreams”.
44F at 1pm with faint wisps of cloud and brilliant sunshine reflected off the snow.
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46F by mid-afternoon, brilliant sunshine, two feet of soft snow acts as a giant pillow for lounging in the sun.
© J.N. Urbanski 2.30pm
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Half a pound of Angus beef served with either fries or salad; it’s the jalapeno mayonnaise sauce that gives this juicy burger a hearty kick to the palate with melted smoked gouda cheese, sliced dill pickles and lettuce. The bun is also up to the challenge, remaining steadfast despite the onslaught of sauce, which will run over and douse the perfectly cooked fries: crispy outer shell and fluffy potato within and possibly the best fries in the Catskills (along with the steak fries at Boiceville Inn). The Mean Green from Catskill Mountain Country Store and Restaurant is wholly delicious.
18F by 1pm, sunny with more skin-peeling, freeze-dried hands, thundering winds.
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Gusty winds bringing isolated snow showers all night and into the morning, coating the landscape once again with fresh powder after a warm week. 25F by mid-afternoon with high winds and dappled grey sky. Dangerous wind chill warning for this evening.
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