Chilly and overcast, warming up at lunchtime, for a high of 71F. Dramatic clouds with brief sunshine.
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Daily Catskills: 07/26/17
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Tag Archives: Mountain Life
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: 07/19/17
85F by mid-afternoon, warm in the sun, pleasant in the shade.
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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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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: 06/10/17
80F by mid-afternoon, warm and sunny.
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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: 06/05/17
70F by mid-afternoon, humid and breezy, clouds ready to burst all day, mist crawling over mountains. Sultry.
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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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Daily Catskills: 05/23/17
69F by mid-afternoon, bright and sunny.
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Daily Catskills: 05/20/17
75F by mid-afternoon with rippled, early morning clouds evaporating in the brilliant sunshine.
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Daily Catskills: 05/07/17
46F by mid-afternoon, humid and overcast with continual misty rain. A good day to forage, harvest, cook and preserve.
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Daily Catskills: 05/03/17
51F by mid-afternoon, chilly, windy and overcast with a sunny afternoon.
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Daily Catskills: 04/27/17
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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Catskills Conversations: Rebecca Andre
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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.
Daily Catskills: 4/21/17
57F by mid-afternoon, humid and gloomy. Still life with scents.
© J.N. Urbanski 5pm
Daily Catskills: 04/20/17
50F at 9am, fog receding into the mountains leaving a dewy landscape. 61F by mid-afternoon with torrential early evening rain. Wet.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.20am
Donate
© 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
Daily Catskills: 04/18/17
55F by mid-afternoon, mostly clear and sunny with distant clouds on the horizon.
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Daily Catskills: 04/16/17
79F by mid-afternoon with a cool breeze and cotton wool clouds that turned grey and burst early evening.
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Daily Catskills: 04/15/17
62F and sunny with wispy clouds. The forest springs to life under the hemlocks.
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Catskills Food Guide 2017
© 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
Daily Catskills: 04/13/17
55F by mid-afternoon, chilly and overcast. Hazelnut catkins swaying in the breeze.
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Daily Catskills: 04/12/17
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.
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Daily Catskills: 04/11/17
80F scorcher, hazy, humid. Wading in cool streams, under waterfalls, shaded by pine trees.
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Spring Links
© 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
Daily Catskills: 04/09/17
68F by mid-afternoon with wisps of cloud in an azure sky. Laundry swaying in the breeze like huge flags.
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Daily Catskills: 04/08/17
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
Daily Catskills: 04/07/17
36F at noon: thick mist, rushing rivers, overflowing tributaries, sloppy mud, snow until mid-afternoon. Spring on hold.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
Daily Catskills: 04/06/17
38F by 2pm and overcast with persistent heavy rain throughout the day.
© J.N. Urbanski 4pm
Daily Catskills: 04/05/17
60F by mid-afternoon with clear skies and flowing streams reflecting the blazing sun. Spring springs.
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Daily Catskills: 04/04/17
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
Daily Catskills: 04/03/17
49F by noon and cloudy with periods of sunshine warming a nascent landscape.
© J.N. Urbanski 9.30am
Upstate Dispatch in NYC
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”.
Daily Catskills: 03/20/17
44F at 1pm with faint wisps of cloud and brilliant sunshine reflected off the snow.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
Daily Catskills: 03/19/17
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
Catskills Sandwich: Mean Green Burger of Windham
© J.N. Urbanski
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.
Daily Catskills: 03/12/17
18F by 1pm, sunny with more skin-peeling, freeze-dried hands, thundering winds.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Daily Catskills: 03/10/17
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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Catskills Sandwich: Bread Alone’s Banh Mi
© J.N. Urbanski
Bread Alone’s Banh Mi sandwich on their signature health bread, although it usually comes on a baguette: pulled pork with kimchee that’s the perfect balance between salty and spicy: juicy and delicious. The health bread is coated with seeds, thick and chewy without being dry like other thick whole wheat breads.
Weekend Links: 02/23/17
© J.N. Urbanski 1.50pm
Weekend camping resets the body clock, says the BBC.
Saturday February 25th: A group reading of Macbeth with beer at Reynolds & Reynolds in Woodstock.
Cosmik Ice Cream, maker of freeze-dried ice cream that will never melt, visits Woodchuck Lodge. In these temperatures, nothing is melting up here, but for us trustees of Woodchuck Lodge, this is lovely publicity.
Governor Cuomo pledges $8 million in state funds for Belleayre Ski Resort.
Woodstock Farm Festival looking for vendors.
The Catskills’ own Lisbeth Firmin’s talk “Painting and Prints” on March 17th at William & Ida Friday Center for Continuing Education in North Carolina.
Catskill Center is accepting applications for the Platte Clove Artist in Residence Program.
Daily Catskills: 02/18/17
A balmy 62F by mid-afternoon, hot in the bright sunshine with cobweb clouds. Snow dripping from trees like a very slow shower.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.30am
Daily Catskills: 02/09/17
18F by 1pm with a foot-deep blanket of overnight snow and high winds kicking up the powder into a misty spray.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Fire Cider Making at Spillian
© J.N. Urbansk
Yesterday was Imbolc, a Gaelic holiday, celebrated by Christians as St Brigid’s Day, marking the first day of Spring. If the snow is low enough, snowdrops traditionally have always appeared at this time. Also yesterday was the third annual World Fire Cider Day and Spillian held a class run by Liza Belle in the ancient tradition of making fire cider. Fire cider is an ancient folk remedy and winter tonic in which curative roots, herbs and spices are steeped in apple cider vinegar. The basic ingredients of fire cider are garlic, horseradish root, jalapeños, habaneros, ginger and onion all finely chopped and covered in apple cider vinegar. To this mix you can add extras like cinnamon, juniper berries, rosemary, thyme, cayenne pepper, blood orange and rose hips, burdock root and turmeric. Last night, we chopped and chatted and went home with a can of fire cider to steep for six weeks.
The Catskill 35: Rusk Mountain, a first attempt
© J.N. Urbanski
It’s good to know when to give up and turn around and yesterday was one of those days. Rusk Mountain, a bushwhack that seemed easy on paper, was an almost vertical ascent the way we went, covered in a layer of thick snow, making it difficult to maintain traction even in snow shoes. After an hour of climbing, slipping, sliding and clinging to tree branches, the final straw was the formiddable rock ledge (pictured above) that greeted me about 20 minutes from the top. There were tracks up the side of this ledge from hikers that were ahead of us, but the snow was crumbly and there were no tree roots or rocks for support. Plus, I was cold, fatigued and we had started too late, so we were in a bit of a rush. Last time I ignored the conditions, I slid 30 feet down a mountain and slammed into a tree. I learned my lesson back then.
Daily Catskills: 01/28/17
29F at 10am, snow flurries, turbulent sky, with flashes of blue.
© J.N. Urbanski 10.45am
Weekend Links: Another January Closes
© J.N. Urbanski
Leave it to the inestimable Park Rangers to impress us with their louche cool and a rogue Twitter account – and those fantastic outfits. Get all the other hilarious rogue Twitter accounts here at CNN from NASA and other regional Park Service employees.
Tonight, a Scottish Weekend begins at the historical Mohonk Mountain House in New Paltz.
Catskill Park Coalition Information Session at the Catskill Center tomorrow, Saturday January 28th.
Next Friday, February 3rd, The Annual Winter Hoot at the Ashokan Center.
For writers, a Museum of Linguistics is arriving in Washinton DC called “Planet Word”.
Upstate Dispatch Retro Links
© J.N. Urbanski
A local cocktail, Vly Creek Vodka Lemonade with local maple syrup and vodka.
My description of the most breathtakingly beautiful climb on the Catskills 35, Balsam Mountain. My first peak on my mission to hike the Catskills 35, Panther Mountain. By the way, don’t steal signs! Hikers rely on them.
My thoughts on being introduced to camping.
A spring day out to plan: a swim in Big Pond, then a visit to buy some local trout.
The Catskill 35: Halcott Mountain
© J.N. Urbanski
Seven of the final nine peaks left on my list to be climbed to qualify for full membership in the Catskill 3500 Club are all bushwhacks and Halcott Mountain, which I climbed last week is the second lowest bushwhack in the Catskill 3500, but somehow felt like the steepest. From now until I finish my 39th climb, it’ll be mostly compass, map reading, being slapped in the eyeballs by saplings and tree branches, falling face first into slush, sliding backwards over ice into a tree, hauling oneself over giant ledges, and watching the summit move upwards as you climb towards it. (“That’s it! Wait…”) In fact, it’s all uphill from here.
Daily Catskills: 01/24/17
34F by 2pm, overcast, gloomy, with mild overnight ice storm having left few inches of gravelly ice that were topped by six inches of afternoon snow on the peaks. Slushy, muddy valleys.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Daily Catskills: 01/18/17
34F at 9am, overcast, recovering from overnight ice storm. Every leaf, branch, blade, needle trapped in a glassy prison. House covered in icy granola.
© J.N. Urbanski 8.45am
Arts Update: Ted Sheridan
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Ted Sheridan is more architect that artist, having designed the cozy studio attached to the house that he and Amy Masters share. He went into architecture because of his love of drawing which he has done since he was young: technical drawing and line drawing in pencil. “Even though computers have taken over the traditional drawing and drafting, I still hand draw a lot of my projects,” he says. As far as his artwork is concerned: “architecture is so controlled and precise, I was looking for ways to work in a medium that would work against that and be unpredictable, not be in control all the time.”