Esperance

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Catskills syrupmakers celebrate Maple Weekend(s)

By Anne Pyburn Craig
3/15/13 - 12:47 pm

We found the pot of gold: It's at Roxbury Mountain Maple. (And a dozen-plus other syrupmakers around the Catskills, all celebrating Maple Weekend on March 16-17 and 23-24.) Photo from Roxbury Mountain Maple's Facebook page.

Editor's note: We have added more events to this post since it was first published.

Legend has it that an Iroquois chief accidentally tapped a maple when he’d just needed someplace to stick his tomahawk, and his significant other decided to try cooking with the liquid from the wounded tree. Thus began tree-to-table, and a lively lot of characters have been refining the art ever since.

Over the intervening years, syrup harvesters have found ways to be a bit gentler to the trees, which graciously donate their sweet essence year after year to humans who craft it into all sorts of delectable treats, a gentle act of organized foraging. Read more

Celebrating pi -- and pie

By Lissa Harris
3/14/13 - 1:44 pm

Above: Homemade pie with apples from Wrights Farm, destined to meet a sticky end in Lazy Crazy Acres's small-batch Apple Cobbler gelato. Photo from Pure Catskills's Facebook wall.

It's 3.14 today, which means math nerds and pie-lovers around the world are celebrating Pi Day.

In honor of this most auspicious holiday, the Watershed Post is collecting beloved pie hotspots in the Catskills. (Like you really need an excuse for pie.) Got a favorite local source for fresh-baked pie? Let us know in a comment below, or tweet with the hashtag #CatskillsPie.

Flood advisories issued

By Andrea Girolamo
3/12/13 - 2:32 pm

The National Weather Service out of Albany has issued a spate of advisories for the entire area. Delaware, Greene, Sullivan and Ulster counties are under a flood advisory until 5 pm. while Delaware and Sullivan are also under a flash flood watch. A flood watch has been issued for Schoharie, western Greene county and western Ulster.

Click here for a complete list of watches and warnings.

Snow day!

By Julia Reischel
3/8/13 - 10:15 am

Schools are closed across the Catskills this Friday morning, and it looks like a snow globe out there. The Hudson Valley Weather Facebook page reports that the snowfall ranges from 1 to 10 inches deep across the region.

We want proof! Share your snow photos with us, and we will add them to our slideshow above. Read more

Two-year moratorium on hydrofracking passed in Assembly

By Lissa Harris
3/6/13 - 10:02 pm

Above: Screenshot of a video from a Wednesday morning press conference by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and fellow Assembly Democrats on a bill that, if passed into law, will place a two-year moratorium on fracking in New York State. Source: The Albany Times-Union's Capitol Confidential blog. Watch the full video below.

A bill placing a two-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in New York State passed the Assembly by a wide margin on Wednesday, March 6, and is now headed for the Senate, according to several news reports.

If signed into law, bill A.5424, which has local Assemblyman Kevin Cahill as one of its sponsors, would suspend gas drilling permits in the Marcellus and Utica shale until May 15, 2015, and require the state to complete a review of the public health impacts of hydrofracking before any permits can be issued. Read more

Cuomo announces $25 million in grants to build more broadband

By Lissa Harris
3/5/13 - 10:51 pm

Utility poles near Binghamton. Photo by Flickr user Enoch Ross; photo published under Creative Commons license.

Rural utility companies call it the "last mile problem": Even in places where there is a network nearby that carries data, the final connections that bring service to individual houses are the most difficult and expensive to build. In the rural Catskills, where houses are far from one another and remote from population centers, many homes and communities still lack access to high-speed internet or cable television.

Some of those areas may soon get new broadband access. On Tuesday, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the awarding of $25 million in grants to fund the expansion of broadband networks in underserved parts of the state, through the Connect NY Broadband Grant Program. Read more