Ostrander Bridge is now open

Can you identify this?

File under the category of technological change. Found this in CPOA archives:

March snow

 Even the flamingos were snowbound on Stoney Clove Lane:

awaiting spring

Winter 2019-2020

A couple of pictures courtesy of Allan Hirsch:

Stoney Clove Creek:

Ashokan Trail, on Route 28:

Same day, different weather

 Tannersville, 2.40pm:

Chichester, 3.20pm:

July party

Rains came on the 6th, then stopped long enough for us to have a nice party, with fireworks and the end.

Our swimming hole looks great:

A few volunteers

Our CPOA grounds needed some TLC, and a few of us got to it.

Our new Adirondack chairs looked very nice:

 There was, of course, a reward for hours of toil:

Spring 2019

After much rain and cool weather, Spring really did arrive. It is always gorgeous in Chichester.

Japanese knotweed

It's everywhere, and keeps on growing. Tried to pull it out by its roots numerous times, but it is difficult. Also turns out to be pointless:

Oh, no, not knotweed Slate Science article dated 8 May 2019, by Henry Grabbar.

It’s been nearly four years since I bought hypodermic needles at a CVS, squatted in my backyard, and drew them full of glyphosate. I’d done my best to build a little garden in Brooklyn, only to see the ground begin to vanish beneath the fastest-growing plant I had ever seen. It sprouted in April with a pair of tiny, beet-red leaves between the flagstones, and poked up like asparagus through the mulch. By May the leaves were flat and green and bigger than my hands, and the stems as round as a silver dollar. My neighbor’s yard provided a preview of what was coming my way: a grove as thick as a cornfield, 10 feet high, from the windows to the lot line. I had to kill the knotweed. I tried a few different approaches: Yanking it out stalk by stalk was a sweaty, summer-long game of whack-a-mole—a thankless full-time job. Then a friend and I spent one long night digging a 10-by-4-foot trench, lining it with black contractor bags, and refilling it with dirt. It looked like we were trying to bury something, and in a way we were: the knotweed rhizomes—the plant’s creeping rootstalks—under our feet, searching for a ray of light.

I've been there, tried that.

Anyway, it didn’t work. Japanese knotweed has come a long way since Philipp Franz von Siebold, the doctor-in-residence for the Dutch at Nagasaki, brought it to the Utrecht plant fair in the Netherlands in the 1840s. The gold-medal shrub was prized for its “gracious flowers” and advertised as ornament, medicine, wind shelter, soil retainer, dune stabilizer, cattle feed, and insect pollinator. The stems could be dried to make matchsticks, or cut and cooked like rhubarb. It crested in the dog days of summer with tassels of tiny white buds. Oh, and it grew with “great vigor.”

Amen. Turns out even academic articles about that scourge have been published; to wit:

Optimising physiochemical control of invasive Japanese knotweed
Read at your own risk; bottom line: good luck.

How about this approach? Read it if you dare.

Potential of wild growing Japanese kntoweed (REYNOUTRIA JAPONICA) for briquette production

Phoenicia Eagle

Visiting Phoenicia, on an early May day. This eagle had once stood outside Grand Central Station in Manhattan.

The Tell

On Sunday afternoon, 12 August 2018, Linda I. Meyers read from her published memoir, The Tell. The reading took place on the second floor of The Golden Notebook (9 Tinker St, Woodstock, NY 12498). In the audience were many fellow CPOA members and neighbors. A fascinating story told with verve and elan, and quite a sense of humor.

Linda I. Meyers was 28 and the mother of three young boys when her mother, after a lifetime of threats, took her own life. Staggered by conflicting feelings of relief and remorse, Meyers believed that the best way to give meaning to her mother’s death was to make changes to her own life. Bolstered by the women’s movement of the ‘70s, she left her marriage, went to college and received her Psy.D., raised a family, and established a fulfilling career.

Written with irony and humor and sprinkled with Yiddish, “The Tell” is one woman’s inspirational story of before and after, and ultimately of emancipation and purpose. With stories ranging from witty to heartbreaking, “The Tell” showcases Meyers’ talent as a gifted storyteller. She chronicles her experience coming of age in a dysfunctional Jewish family during the ‘40s and ‘50s, her summer romance with a boy who grew up to be fashion designer Ralph Lauren, the rise of feminism, and running a family acting business that led to her son landing a memorable role as young Alvy Singer in Woody Allen’s Academy Award-winning movie “Annie Hall.”

Rain, rain, rain

Everyone knows it rains in the Catskills; a lot. And there is no such thing as climate change, right? (ahem). But it has been raining A LOT this summer.

July 29:

August 3:

August 6:

What is the outlook? Oh, no! Thusderstorms.

Kayaking the Stoney Clove Creek

That much rain fell; the Creek had rapids and some whitewater. Three adventurers took the chance to shoot the rapids in Chichester. Amy Lerner took this picture:

No water shortage here, thanks to an atmospheric river

From a  story dated 24 July 2018 found on the website NewYorkUpstate.com:

 Almost 7 inches of rain fell Monday in the Catskills as a rainy week kicked off in Upstate New York.

A weather observer in Phoenicia, in Ulster County, measured 6.68 inches of rain, according to National Weather Service reports. That was the highest of more than 200 Upstate locations reported to the weather service.

More than 5 inches fell in neighboring Greene County as thunderstorms dumped torrential rain Monday. Farther to the north, Albany and Fulton counties had reports of more than 4 inches. 

The "atmospheric river" of Atlantic Ocean moisture was funneled through eastern New York and parts of the Southern Tier Monday. Much of Western New York and the North County got a half-inch or less.

Shandaken seeks NY state grant for Phoenicia Water District

Story from the Daily Freeman 31 July 2018:

The town is seeking a $750,000 grant from the state Office of Community Renewal to address longstanding problems that have prevented the Phoenicia Water District from working efficiently.

The application was submitted last week.

“We’ve run into some issues during the environmental review,” Shandaken Supervisor Robert Stanley said. “Doing an archeological survey, we found some bedrock, which may need to be blasted. We also ran into some issues with the water line crossing the Woodland Valley bridge, so we had to retract the previous grant and close that one out.”


The additional work has resulted in the town seeking nearly $300,000 more than the amount of a grant awarded nearly three years ago.

Rusticalia

I didn't even know it was a word. That's a beautiful feature of our English language — especially the American vintage, I'd say: the invention of words. Some of those words still give me trouble (thru instead of through just does not work for me, although it is easier to figure out how to pronounce). But, there it is: rusticalia.

I found rusticalia in a story in Chronogram about funky clothing stores in the Hudson Valley: Vintage Clothing Stores in the Hudson Valley  Your Guide to Rockin' Retro Threads Upstate.

Mystery Spot Antiques: 72 Main Street, Phoenicia, NY 12464.

Its Instagram page describes it as: The Catskills' shrine to clutter. Seven rms packed w/ vintage clothing, vinyl, oddities & Rusticalia.

Phoenix, NY?

In an article Tanneries hurt the environment in the 1800s, but the Catskills eventually benefited, published in the website Hudonvalleyone.com, Violet Snow discusses the work of Paul Misko, who researches and makes presentations on our corner of the Catskills. It makes for interesting reading, including this tidbit:

An avid hiker since childhood, Misko has researched the remnants of human presence he often stumbles across in the woods. He explains how Phoenicia received its name, based, as many town residents know, on the Phoenix Tannery, once a mainstay of the local economy. Not all of us have heard that the tannery’s name came from the rapid rebuilding of the structure when it burned down in 1839, soon after it was first constructed. The town was called Phoenix until the postal service was getting established. Because there was already another Phoenix, New York, local residents picked the new name, hearkening back to the ancient Mediterranean culture.

Big Muddy

This is a video of Stoney Clove Creek from 15 October 2011 after heavy rains.

Onteora school officials working to trim budget

Story in Daily Freeman on 10 February 2018.

Onteora school district trustees are reviewing a draft $56.21 million 2018-19 budget that would increase spending by $1.92 million, or 3.53 percent.

At a Board of Education meeting Tuesday, officials said they would either have to reduce spending or find more revenue for the budget to meet the 3.63 percent state tax levy limit.

Above that limit, voters would have to approve the spending plan by a supermajority of 60 percent of ballots cast.

Woodstock Brewing opens at Phoenicia Plaza

Story on Hudson Valley One from 14 January 2018.

Parabolic, Between Two Points, Permanent Midnight, Rhetoric, and Entropy are the heady names of the five beers, brewed on-site, that appeared on the taproom chalkboard at Woodstock Brewing on opening day, January 5. Despite its name, the microbrewery is located just east of Phoenicia on Route 28 at the Phoenicia Plaza, which is finally filled up after a fire damaged the stores two years ago.

website: Woodstock Brewing.
Facebook page: Woodstock Brewing

map location:

First snowfall of the season

Snow is forecast to fall this Saturday 9 December; perhaps an inch.

A story from Hudson Valley One discusses development of the Ashokan hiking/biking trail.

The county legislature on Tuesday, Nov. 14 voted 14-7 to remove some 11 miles of county-owned Ulster and Delaware rails and ties to make way for the construction of a hiking/biking trail around the northern end of the Ashokan Reservoir.

Project costs for the trail are estimated at some $9.3 million with about half being funded by the New York City Department of Environmental Preservation, which owns the reservoir.
Rail supporters had hoped to retain an 1.1 mile stretch of rail ending at the Glenford Dike in order to extend Catskill Mountain Railroad scenic rides to view the reservoir.


The legislation approved Tuesday night fulfills a December 2016 compromise which allowed CMRR to operate its tourist trains from Kingston to West Hurley while the county moved forward with plans to establish the Ashokan hiking/biking trail.

Phillipe Petit at Phoenicia Library benefit

On Saturday 11 November 2017 the Phoenicia Library held a fundraiser. First, appetizers and drinks were served in the Library; after, we all repaired to the Phoenicia Playhouse (formerly STS) to view the film Man on Wire, the story of Phillipe Petit walking on a cable between the Towers of the World Trade Center on the morning of August 7, 1974. After the film, Monsieur Petit answered questions for half an hour.

November 2017

The swimming hole still in good shape. Remnants of recent heavy rains remain.

Will wonders ever cease?

Two weeks go Stoney Cove Lane was paved with several inches of blacktop; since then, the shoulders of the lane have been filled in, and we now have a pretty, smooth road.
  And the old Sachs house, the first on the left after one passed over the Stoney Clove Creek bridge, which was devastated by Hurricane Irene in 2011, was finally demolished.

from:

Shandaken parks benefit from grant

A story in the Daily Freeman from 8 June 2017 Shandaken town parks to benefit from NY state grant

Town parks are getting $12,000 worth of upgrades this summer thanks to the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The money is part of a $28,450 Smart Growth grant the state gave Shandaken last year. Besides park improvements, the money is being spent on solar-powered lighting, landscaping for town signs and maps in parks that show the locations and amenities of other parks in the town.

The $12,000 will be spread across all of the parks in Shandaken, according to town Supervisor Rob Stanley: Smith Park in the hamlet of Pine Hill will get a moon rock climber; Big Indian Park will get six new picnic tables, a park bench and a mini-disc golf set; Parish Field in Phoenicia will get a chipmunk spring jumper; and Glenbrook Park is to get a new gym climber.

Stanley said the new picnic tables and benches will be made of steel with a plastic coating.

Phoenicia top-rated tourism spot

If you’ve got plans this summer to vacation in the queenly Cape May, N.J., or some other resort community in the Northeast, consider scrapping them. An even better destination is right here in Ulster County, according to Curbed New York, a real-estate and travel blog. Editors recently ranked Phoenicia, a hamlet in the town of Shandaken, as the No. 1 destination outside of New York City. The bohemian mountain community not only beat out the internationally known Victorian seaside resort, but Mystic, Conn., a historic seafaring village known widely for its tourism appeal.

Bohemian?

Story from Hudson Valley News Network on 6 June 2017: Phoenicia Ranked No. 1 as Tourist Spot

Shandaken pauses review of Catskill Mountain Railroad request

The town of Shandaken Planning Board has taken a step back from its review of the Catskill Mountain Railroad’s request for a permit to store equipment on the company’s property in Phoenicia, in part because such storage might not be allowed.

Board members say they want to talk with their lawyer about an opinion he recently issued on the matter.

In a May 1 letter, attorney Richard Olson told the Planning Board it could not act on the railroad’s application because there is a notice of violation regarding the site that must be cleared up first. Olson also said the permit the railroad is seeking does not exist.

From a story in the Daily Freeman on 16 May 2017

Shandaken hits pause button in review of Catskill Mountain Railroad’s train storage request