44F at 9am and overcast with light, misty cloud rolling over the mountains. Snow receding into the drying landscape. Rain at 1pm, giving the landscape a good soaking.
© J.N. Urbanski 11.30am
Daily Catskills: 04/07/15
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Tag Archives: Photography
Daily Catskills: 04/06/15 Before & After
We’re having extraordinary weather. This morning was like a Christmas Winter Wonderland and this afternoon snowmelt gushes down the mountains while the thermometer hit 60F at 4.30pm. Here are the before and after shots from today. The first picture taken at 7.45am and the second taken at 3.15pm in exactly the same place.
© J.N. Urbanski 7.45m
© J.N. Urbanski 3.15pm
Daily Catskills: 04/05/15
Alas, we seem to have taken turn for the worse… 36F at snowing at 10am this morning. If it doesn’t warm up, we’ll have snow all day. The only saving grace: Easter chocolate. Update: the snowfall got heavier in the afternoon and into the evening.
© J.N. Urbanski Noon
Daily Catskills: 04/04/15
38F at 11am with high winds and brief moments of sunshine amidst multifarious cloud cover. Despite low temperatures, the snow continues to melt. Update: still 38F at 2pm with fast moving clouds, high winds and bright sunshine.
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Daily Catskills: 04/02/15
44F at 9am with bright sunshine poking through the hazy cloud cover. The thermometer was reading 52F at 10am and 55F at 2pm. Today seems to mark the point of no return (to winter).
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm
Daily Catskills: 04/01/15
18F at 7am. Freezing lines hampering early morning cast-off on the first day of Trout Season at Junction Pool, Roscoe “Trout Town”. Sunny at 8am. Update: 39F at glorious clear skies with light winds at 1.30pm.
J.N. Urbanski 8.30am
© J.N. Urbanski 6.45am
Daily Catskills: 03/31/15
40F and sunny at 9am with partly cloudy skies. Update: 45F at noon and warm without a coat.
© J.N. Urbanski 11am
Daily Catskills: 03/30/15
32F, overcast and lightly snowing at 8.30am. As far as Spring is concerned it appears to be one step forward and two steps back. The windowsill sage continues to bolt regardless. Update: moderate winds for most of the day with a smattering of hail. The clouds parted at about 5pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 4pm Bolted sage
© J.N. Urbanski 5pm
Daily Catskills: 03/29/15
34F at 10.30am with bright sunshine casting vivid, long shadows of the forest in the snow; clear skies stretching down to a hazy horizon. Signs of Spring: your dog finds all the balls he lost in the snow and my obsession with my dead birch tree continues…
© J.N. Urbanski 3pm
© J.N. Urbanski 1.30pm
Daily Catskills: 03/28/15
20F at 8am with barest of snowfall. Did we blink and miss Summer? Update: light snowfall continued throughout the morning and was much heavier by the afternoon. Really, more snow? Yes, really. 30F by 1pm.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm Local, fresh eggs for sale at River Run, from Lazy Crazy Acres $4 in the cooler
Daily Catskills: 03/27/15
32F at 9am, a light icy rain and the remnants of last night’s fog lazing over the mountains. The snow banks have dissipated and a grungy landscape is emerging. 36F at 1.30pm and no rain.
© J.N. Urbanski 12.30pm There’s a swimming hole in there if you look hard enough
Transplant Tales: Esther De Jong
© Esther De Jong Self-portrait
“I don’t ever think any more in terms of weekdays and weekends… I don’t ever feel the need to book a vacation any more because to me it’s all here.”
Esther De Jong, model, real estate agent and fine artist lives full-time in the Catskills after relocating from her native Holland via a life and career based in New York City.
How long have you lived in the Catskills?
Since 2006.
Daily Catskills: 03/26/15
A thrilling 37F at 9am, rising to 45F by 1pm. Mysterious fog thickening heavily into the evening. Spring on the way?
© Margaret Helthaler Rondout Reservoir
Daily Catskills: 03/25/15
25F at 9am and partly cloudy, partly sunny. An enigmatic day.
© Margaret Helthaler View from the top of Thunder Hill in Grahamsville
Daily Catskills: 03/24/15
14F at 9am, rising to 25F by noon, with overnight lows dipping into the single digits: the arctic torturer rolls up his sleeves, but this time we hope its brief.
Catskills Conversations: Margaret D. Helthaler
© Chris Helthaler
Margaret D. Helthaler is a graphic designer and fine art photographer living in the Catskills. She is taking the Daily Catskills images for Upstate Dispatch for the next three days.
How long have you lived in the Catskills?
Daily Catskills: 03/23/15
10F at 8am, partly cloudy alternating with bright sunshine. Update: 23F, clear blue skies and sunshine by midday.
© J.N. Urbanski 9am My Monday morning radio show on WIOX
© J.N. Urbanski 10.30am
Sunday Punk and More Tea
To continue the British punk theme for the remainder of the weekend and into Monday. The DIY ethos of the punk movement merged with my British obsession with tea, (made from Organic Traveler’s Tea) ready for The Economy of Punk on WIOX FM Radio tomorrow morning at 9am. Making my own cold tea while choosing content for the show.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm Organic Travelers Tea
Daily Catskills: 03/22/15
28F at midday, lowering to 22F by 2pm with bright sunshine alternating with fast-moving cloud and high winds. Gloves essential.
© J.N. Urbanski 2pm
Punk at the Spills
Daily Catskills: 03/21/15
Second day of spring = glorious winter wonderland. Mud season in abatement after yesterday’s low temperatures. 36F at 10am with morning sun occasionally peeking through the rolling grey cloud cover. An inch of yesterday’s powder remained on the branches. 40F at 1pm: overcast, with only brightness from the snow.
© J.N. Urbanski 1pm Firepit buried under snow.
Daily Catskills: 03/20/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/20/15 Spring Equinox
© 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.
Daily Catskills: 03/19/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/18/15
21F at 9am with high winds. The snow gets whipped up by the squalls.
© Margaret Helthaler Big Hollow Road, Grahamsville
Historical Art of the Catskills
© 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.
Daily Catskills: 03/17/15
34F at 8am rising to 39F. Wet and overcast: mud season continues unabated.
© Margaret Helthaler The Reformed Church in Grahamsville
Hug A Hemlock
© 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:
Daily Catskills: 03/15/15
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 Hubbell Cider Press
© 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.
Daily Catskills: 03/14/15
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
Bookshelves of the Catskills
© J.N. Urbanski The Explorers’ Room at Spillian
Daily Catskills: 03/13/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/12/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/11/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/10/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/09/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/08/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/07/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/06/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/05/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/04/15
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
Daily Catskills: 03/03/15
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.”
Daily Catskills: 03/01/15
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
Daily Catskills: 02/28/15
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
Daily Catskills: 02/26/15
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
Downstate Dispatch: Brooklyn Sunset
© J.N. Urbanski 5.30pm Sunset Park Brooklyn
Daily Catskills: 2/25/15
12F with hazy sunshine at 8.30am.
© Margaret Helthaler Rondout Reservoir, Grahamsville
Daily Catskills: 02/23/15
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…
Daily Catskills: 02/22/15
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
Daily Catskills: 02/21/15
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
Daily Catskills: 02/19/15
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…
Daily Catskills: 02/18/15
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
Daily Catskills: 02/17/15
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
Daily Catskills: 02/16/15
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