Last weekend's big flood benefit concert in New Paltz raised $52,000 for flood victims who were hit hard by Tropical Storms Irene and Lee on the Wallkill River in Ulster County.
The concert, which you can watch in full on the New Paltz Flood Aid website, featured a huge roster of local performers. The funds will go to the New Paltz Community Foundation, which is still taking donations via PayPal.
Here's the press release from the concert organizers:
Leading up to our benefit concert on 10/16 at Hasbrouck Park, New Paltz Flood Aid for Farmers, Families, and First Responders had collected over $30,000 from our 10/2 kickoff event and in sponsorships, donations, and pre-concert ticket sales. Due to a continued tremendous outpouring of support – on the day of the concert we increased that amount to over $52,000. Amazing! Read more
Antlers: Too small (top) and large enough to kill (bottom): DECThe New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is expanding its antler-restriction program for deer hunting into a larger portion of the Catskills, in a bid to allow more young bucks to grow into mature deer before they are killed during hunting season.
The DEC has been experimenting with antler restrictions in the Catskills since 2005, and Governor Andrew Cuomo expanded the program this summer into an area south and west of Route 28 in Ulster, Sullivan and Delaware counties for the 2011 season.
The antler restriction program requires that bucks can only be shot if they "have at least one antler with 3 or more points that are at least one inch long." (See photo at left.) So far, the program seems to work, according to its Deer Management Plan, which was finalized this month:
Data from the pilot program indicate that harvest of yearling bucks has declined about 80%, consistent with the program’s goal (Hurst and Kautz 2011). The average number of 2.5+ year old bucks in the harvest has increased 53%, and in 2009-2010, approximately 85% of adult bucks taken in the pilot units were 2.5 years old or older.
But while some hunters and groups, notably the New York State Whitetail Management Coalition, support antler restrictions, others aren't convinced. The DEC conducted a survey of hunter attitudes in 2010, and found that while hunters supported protecting young bucks, they also want freedom to bag whatever buck they choose. Read more
Pink Pearl apple at Montgomery Place Orchards, an orchard and cidery in Red Hook, NY on the Cider Route. Photo from Montgomery Place's website.
The Apple Project, a scion of local farm advocacy group Glynwood, is sparking a revival of old-school cidermaking in upstate New York and the Hudson Valley. (And by old-school cider, we're referring to what the rest of the world outside of the United States thinks of when they hear the word "cider" -- a tart, effervescent, fermented elixir that bears little resemblance to the sweet brown stuff that comes in plastic half-gallon jugs at the supermarket.)
The Apple Project's founders hope that by encouraging a revival of traditional cidermaking in the Hudson Valley, they can spur the development of a high-value product for local farmers, help increase local apple biodiversity, and encourage farm tourism in the region. Read more
A video by food.curated showing damage to Maple Downs Farm, a dairy farm in the Schoharie County town of Middleburgh that was devastated by the recent floods.
On Monday, October 17, the New York State Public Service Commission (PSC) and the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced that $5 million would be made available in grants for replacing farm equipment damaged in the flooding from Irene and Lee.
The grants are limited to $100,000 per farm, and will be used to fund energy-efficient replacements for equipment that is powered by electricity or natural gas. From a press release announcing the program: Read more
As you may have noticed, it's a big year for apples. I wrote a whole feature story about that fact here last week, and spilled a lot of virtual ink about the virtues of apple cider. But what if you have cider and apple juice coming out of your ears and need a few more ways to process this year's apple crop? Hobart publisher Andrew Flach has a solution for you.
Flach runs Hatherleigh Press, a publishing company based in Hobart. (It is a book village, after all.) Hatherleigh puts out a series of cookbooks called "Farmstand Favorites," and one of those cookbooks is devoted entirely to apple recipes. Flach is allowing us to re-post three of those apple recipes here. (For more, you have to buy the book.) Read more
Above: Flickr slideshow of photos from the reopening of the Boiceville Supermarket IGA, Thursday, October 13, 2011. Photos by Julia Reischel.
Shopping for groceries isn't generally one of life's more festive activities. But in Boiceville today, it felt like a birthday party.
It's been over a month since a cash register rang at the Boiceville Supermarket IGA, which was taken out of commission by a river of mud during the flooding from Tropical Storm Irene on August 28. Today, October 13, the supermarket finally opened its doors once more.
Store manager and co-owner Richard Occhi said that employees and customers alike were relieved to see the store open again.
"I've gotten handshakes and hugs," he said. Read more
Above: A photographic tour of the enormous apple cider press at the Hubbell homestead. Click on the slideshow to open the the tour in a separate window. Photos by Julia Reischel.
It’s a good year for apples in the Catskills. Call it the silver lining of all that rain.
All over the mountains, on the roadsides and up in the hills, wild apple trees that usually don’t make much fruit have decided to make this year a banner year. Fallen apples litter sidewalks and trails. To grab a perfectly edible snack off a branch, all you have to do is reach and grab.
Apples destined for the cider press at the Hubbell homestead. Photo by Julia Reischel. Read more
The students pictured above -- Jessi-Lyn Borfitz, Brady Pickett, Nick Cross and Brandon Fancher -- passed out samples of peppers that had been harvested from the RCS garden. Madalyn Warren, a local organic farmer who is also the garden director at RCS, is on the right.
Below is a photo of the display the RCS students made for their presentation. Both photos were taken by Kellie Sullivan.
Video: Part 1 of A Pickup Load of Pigs: The Feral Swine Pandemic, a three-part series produced by the Mississippi State University Extension Service. More from the series available here.
Feral pigs are gaining a foothold in western Sullivan County and other places in New York State -- and without much in the way of state resources to control them, the job of keeping their numbers from exploding is falling to private citizens.
This week, a story in the Times Herald-Record features local farmer Peter Andersen, who also starred in a Reuters story about the pig plague earlier this year. His fields are being overrun by wild boars, and recently, reporter Adam Bosch writes, he killed eight of them in one night:
In two minutes, he fired nine shots and killed eight pigs. He also proved two points:
"I'm a very good shot," Andersen said with a serious chuckle, "and these animals need to be destroyed." Read more
After the flooding of Irene and Lee, NYC food blogger Liza de Guia, who makes short behind-the-scenes documentary films about food from field to fork, visited Maple Downs Farm in Middleburgh. What she found was a landscape that has become all too familiar in the region: acres of flattened corn, destroyed equipment, evidence of barns and buildings that were up to their eaves in water.
In the film, farmer Denise Lloyd echoes the words we've been hearing again and again from flood victims: At least we survived.
"I choose to thank God that it wasn't worse than what it actually was. It wiped out our farm, our business, it wiped out our home, it wiped out my business on Main Street, my car was totaled, trucks were totaled. Everywhere you look, it affected every part of our lives," she said.
"I am thankful to God for His mercy that we're all here, my family members are all here." Read more
