Two Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs take a nap in the shade at Horton Hill Farm in Jefferson. Photo taken during Schoharie County Family Farm Day, Saturday August 17, by Jennifer Strom. For more photos from Family Farm Day, see the Catskills Food Guide's Facebook page.
Happy Monday, Catskills. After a couple of weeks of what felt like fall in August, it looks like we're in for some warmer weather: Hudson Valley Weather is forecasting temperatures in the mid-to-upper 80s this week, possibly cracking 90 on Wednesday or Thursday. Temperatures will be a bit cooler up in the mountains, naturally, but we should still see highs in the 70s and 80s up in the high peaks.
Bravo to the Woodstock Times's education reporter, Lisa Childers, for using a Freedom of Information Law request to get at the story behind the six-month suspension of Linda Sella from her job as principal of the Phoenicia Elementary School. The Onteora School District has been refusing to talk about Sella's suspension since it was announced in February.
According to a document obtained by Childers, district superintendent Phyllis McGill filed disciplinary charges against Sella with the state Education Department, then withdrew them after a settlement was reached with Sella. In the settlement, Sella admits to having physically restrained a child without having proper training in how to perform a "protective hold," and to inaccurately reporting the incident to the district. Despite the incident, and a formal reprimand from the district, Sella was reinstated as principal of the Phoenicia school earlier this month.
Festival organizers are seeking to downplay tensions, but a report from the Freeman's Paula Ann Mitchell shows that there's clearly some friction between the Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice and the newly-launched Kingston Festival of the Arts, whose co-founder Kerry Henderson was one of the three original founders of the Phoenicia fest. As fans of the local arts scene in all its incarnations, we're hoping they bury the hatchet, and that the Kingston fest comes off brilliantly this weekend. (And we couldn't resist writing a cheeky poem about the spat.)
Don't move wood: A local quarantine on moving ash wood has been extended to 42 New York State counties, in an effort to halt the spread of the emerald ash borer.
Time for a geography lesson, guys: MSNBC recently aired a segment about President Barack Obama's visit to upstate New York this week. News flash: They don't know where Buffalo is. Or Binghamton or Syracuse, for that matter.
City chefs are flocking to upstate New York -- and the New York Times is following them. A recent story in the Dining section checks out the burgeoning farm-to-table scene happening way north of 59th Street, with a nice mention of The Heron in Narrowsburg and an ongoing effort to lure a restaurateur to Catskill's Main Street.
It's local-election season once again: Raymond Malone, who's running for Saugerties highway superintendent, fesses up to a 25-year-old misdemeanor in an effort to combat the local rumor mill.
Longtime Olive board member Pete Friedel is running for supervisor on the Republican ticket, facing off against longtime Democratic clerk Sylvia Rozzelle. Likely to be a heated issue in the race: The town's response to the Irene crisis back in 2011.
Looks like Windham's chief of police, Stacy Post, is going to run for town supervisor against incumbent Stephen Walker -- a race that the Daily Mail describes as "bristling with small town intrigue."
The village of Catskill is considering a ban on the use of frack brine on local roads.
Lexington's town board has slashed a bunch of salaries for town officials. Town supervisor Dixie Baldrey tells the Windham Journal she wants to get the word out about the town's newly-shrunken paychecks to people thinking about running for office this fall.
Tick diseases are on the rise, and claiming local lives. Back in July, we wrote about Powassan virus, a deadly tick-borne form of encephalitis that is emerging as a major threat in the Hudson Valley. Just a few weeks later, on August 4, the virus took the life of a Poughkeepsie teenager who had no known health issues.
The ashes of Richie Havens were scattered on Sunday at Bethel Woods, the site of the 1969 Woodstock festival. His daughter, Dhalia Havens, told the Times Herald-Record that Richie would have approved:
"I feel he was most happy on this stage out of all the places he performed in his life, so we felt this is the place he wanted to be forever."
Life in Coxsackie back in 1663 was no joke. A recent history tour at the Bronck Museum, one of the oldest houses in New York State, offered a peek at the joys of colonial life in Greene County: freezing toes, hungry stomachs, black lungs and missing teeth.
Rural upstate New York needs better broadband access, local politicians say -- and the federal government ought to fund it. At a recent forum on local broadband held by Congressman Chris Gibson, Assemblyman Pete Lopez summed up the attitude of many of his fellow local Republicans toward broadband funding:
"I’m a capitalist, I’m a conservative, I believe in our businesses," Lopez said, "but there’s some instances where we recognize that the market itself can only deliver so much."
Ulster County's gang task force, URGENT, made a big bust in New Paltz on Friday. Seized in a search of a house on Waring Lane, where two people were arrested: Cocaine, prescription drugs, guns, $84,000 in cash, a Ferrari, a Mercedes Benz and a GMC truck.
NewsShed is the Watershed Post's snappy little weekday digest of news, weather and hot bloggy goodness from around the Catskills. Got a hot tip or a photo for the NewsShed? Send it to [email protected].
