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Last day to submit your photos to the 2013 Catskills Outdoor Guide Photo Contest!

Above: Just some of the entries in this year's Catskills Outdoor Guide photo contest, as pictured on our contest Flickr group

The contest is now closed. Winners will be announced on May 28, 2013. Thanks!   Read more

Train wars: Kingston parks dump truck on railroad track

A City of Kingston dump truck blocks the Catskill Mountain Railroad tracks near the Washington Avenue intersection in Kingston. Photo taken Saturday, April 27; courtesy of the Catskill Mountain Railroad.

A City of Kingston dump truck recently appeared on the tracks of the Catskill Mountain Railroad (CMRR) in Kingston, blocking the railroad.

The bizarre standoff was the latest showdown in an ongoing battle over the future of the old Ulster and Delaware rail corridor -- with the railroad on one side, and Ulster County Executive Mike Hein and a group of local trail advocates on the other.

Last October, Hein unveiled a plan to put the Kingston end of the CMRR's line out of service, sell most of the county-owned railway tracks for scrap, and build a trail for walking and biking along the rail corridor. The city of Kingston has sided with Hein -- and come out swinging against the railroad.  Read more

Swarmageddon: Northeast braces for 17-year cicadas

Photo by Dan Century of cicadamania.com. Published under Creative Commons license.

Brood II: It sounds like a low-budget horror movie. But it's real, and it's poised to engulf the East Coast from Georgia to Connecticut, an onslaught of giant bugs that have lain dormant underground for the last 17 years.

The periodical cicada is the Methuselah of insects, spending long years underground in larval form before emerging en masse in tremendous numbers. Groups of 13-year or 17-year periodical cicadas that emerge together are known as 'broods,' and New York State is home to several of them, along with several species of annual cicadas that emerge every year. The last mass cicada emergence in New York, of the 17-year Brood XIV, happened in 2008.   Read more

This weekend: Beltane festival at Stone Mountain Farm

Photo by Linda Law. Courtesy of the Center for Symbolic Studies.

C’mon out and frolic ‘round the Maypole. The Center for Symbolic Studies's annual Beltane festival, taking place this year on Saturday, April 27, regularly draws a crowd of over 1,000 to celebrate the return of warmth and light. (Picture a Renaissance Faire with a lot less commercialism and a lot more Magick and you’ve got the idea.)

This annual rite of spring boasts dancing horses, dancing dragons, and a host of other mythic creatures, the poetry in motion of the Vanaver Caravan and their youth troupe, the Stone Mountain Masquers and Festival Singers, giant puppets, clowns, jongleurs and craftspeople all joining to welcome in the May Queen, blending centuries-old Celtic with right-now Rosendale into a spicy gumbo.  Read more

Ulster County's most wanted

Over the weekend, the Ulster County Sheriff's Office released an updated list of their top ten most wanted fugitives from justice. 

The ten men on the list are wanted for a wide variety of alleged offenses: assault, larceny, welfare fraud, failing to register as a sex offender, failure to pay child support, and in one case, felony DWI.

Topping the list is 30-year-old Jahson Marryshow, who was indicted by an Ulster County grand jury in 2010 on felony charges of robbery, arson and grand larceny, for allegedly robbing the Bank of America in Woodstock and setting fire to a barn

One man on the list, 26-year-old Frankie Joseph, is currently incarcerated in the Lakeview Correctional Facility, a minimum-security prison in Chautauqua County. An officer at the Ulster County Sheriff's Office told the Watershed Post that Ulster County had only recently learned of Joseph's whereabouts.

The list:

1. Jahson A. Marryshow, 30, wanted for Robbery 1st (Bank of America, Woodstock), last known address of 26 Witchtree Road, Woodstock  Read more

Thunderstorms across Catskills

The National Weather Service issued a tornado watch for Sullivan County, along with much of Pennsylvania, for Friday afternoon and evening. (Update, 9:30pm: The area is no longer under tornado watch.)

Sullivan County, along with the rest of the Catskills region, can expect thunderstorms, heavy rain, and gusting winds of up to 40 or 50 miles per hour as a cold front moves through the area from west to east. 

As of around 4pm, Hudson Valley Weather reported, the line of storms was moving through Western Pennsylvania. 

Update, 8:30pm: Delaware and Sullivan Counties are both under severe thunderstorm warnings until 9pm:  Read more