Above: Twyla Tharp. Images provided by the Catskill Mountain Foundation.
Since its 1998 inception, the Catskill Mountain Foundation has tried to make Greene County an international destination for dance. This weekend, with world-renowned choreographer Twyla Tharp presenting the results of her six-week residency in Tannersville, the organization has reached a whole new level.
Above: Bite Me Bakery's Chai Latte cupcake. Photos by Rebecca Andre.
Although Bite Me Bakery opened for business on April Fool’s Day, for the faithful customers and employees of the recently shut down Mama's Boy Market in Phoenicia, this was no joke. They are serious about helping Bite Me Bakery, located on Route 28 in the Ulster County hamlet of Shokan, thrive.
"We are like family," said Bite Me Bakery’s owner, Gillian Johnson, who managed Mama's Boy Market until it closed last November.
A mother and cupcake connoisseur who has been in the restaurant business for 18 years, Johnson suddenly found herself jobless when Mama's Boy Market abruptly closed.
She had quietly built up a loyal following for her cupcakes, which she baked on the side while managing Mama’s Boy, and had thought of opening up her own restaurant in the past.
Above: Bite Me Bakery owner Gillian Johnson talking cupcakes with a young customer.
Above: Abbie Gardner. Contributed photo.
The housekeeping staff is pounding on Abbie Gardner’s door.
“I was recording last night in Nashville,” said the acclaimed singer-songwriter and master of the Dobro-style resonator guitar, laughing into her phone at the Knoxville Red Roof Inn. “I asked for a late checkout, but they didn’t get the message. They never do.”
Gardner, a founding member of renowned Americana trio Red Molly, is on the road, working her way north to play an intimate show presented by Flying Cat Music at the Empire State Railway Museum in Phoenicia on Saturday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. She’ll be stopping off in Jersey City, New Jersey, to pick up her husband, ace upright bassist Craig Akin (of the band Roosevelt Dime) at their recently purchased 1880-era home.
“He’s knocked down another wall,” she said. “He can only do that stuff when I’m not home.” Again, there’s a smile in her voice. “He’s my favorite bass player. I never know exactly what’s gonna happen when we play together.”
Above: Snow on maple buds in Monticello on April 3. Photo by John of Catskills Photography, via the Watershed Post Flickr photo pool.
A surprise snowstorm over the weekend followed warm temperatures last week, covering spring flowers--like these Sullivan County maple buds--with April snow showers.
Forecasts call for three to eight additional inches of snow to fall across the Catskills on Monday, April 4, according to the Albany office of the National Weather Service. A winter weather advisory remains in effect throughout the day until 6 p.m., and schools are closed across the region.
Got photos of this April snowstorm? Share them with us via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Flickr.
This weekend, the Delaware County village of Fleischmanns continues its sweet community tradition with the annual Fleischmanns First Maple Festival.
The festival is the largest event of the second weekend of Maple Weekend, happening Saturday, April 2, and Sunday, April 3 at sugarhouses across the Catskills. (For a full list of Maple Weekend events, click here.)
On Saturday, April 2, the Maple Festival kicks off with a maple pancake breakfast beginning at 8 a.m. at the Fleischmanns Community Church, followed by children’s maple-themed crafts at the Skene Memorial Library, hayrides to the sugar shack and a presentation on the history and lore of maple syruping in the Catskills.
Above: Rick Roberts, the president of the Catskill Mountain Club, advocating for dedicated funding for the Catskill Park in the 2016-2017 New York state budget in Rep. Kevin Cahill's office on Feb. 9, 2016. Photo by Julia Reischel.
Despite months of fierce lobbying in Albany, advocates for the Catskills region of New York did not convince lawmakers to earmark a package of funds for the Catskill Park in the 2016-2017 New York state budget, which was hammered into agreement in the wee hours of Friday, April 1.
Advocates for the Catskills spent the first months of 2016 lobbying hard for the state to create $4 million line item for the Catskill Park in the Environmental Protection Fund (EPF), a request they have repeated for years.
On Feb. 9, during a Catskill Park Awareness Day lobbying event, about 60 people representing the Catskills went door-to-door among legislative offices in Albany to urge lawmakers to commit dedicated funding to the region.
Above: "Peter with a Brown Trout,” by Joan Challacombe, one of the runners-up in the 2015 Catskills Outdoor Guide Photo Contest. (The 2016 photo contest ends tonight, so enter now!)
It's the first day of fishing season in the Catskills, and the oddly warm weather should be especially inviting to anglers across the region today.
The annual first cast at Junction Pool on the Beaverkill happened this morning in the Sullivan County town of Roscoe--aka "Trout Town USA"--at 7:30 a.m., and the celebrations continue all weekend with dinners and fly-tying celebrations, according to the Roscoe NY website.
Trout Unlimited - The Way of a Trout from Bill Strockbine on Vimeo.
Above: A vintage 1969 video made by Trout Unlimited about the life cycle of the trout. Thanks to the Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited for sharing.
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation 2016 Coldwater Fishing Forecast reports that fishing in the East and West Branches of the Delaware River in the western Catskills should improve this year because of improvements to the stream habitats for fish:
Two new in-stream habitat improvement structures were installed in the East Branch tailwaters near Shinhopple and the Tomannex State Forest. The rock and wood structures are intended to provide cover where trout habitat has historically been marginal. Additionally, a large scale restoration project was completed on Sands Creek. A number of habitat structures and floodplain reconnection work was conducted along a one mile stretch of Sands Creek. Sands Creek is an important spawning tributary to the West Branch Delaware River.
The DEC also reports that the "the tailwaters of the West Branch continue to be one of the most productive fisheries for trophy trout in the northeast," but adds that some of those streams between the villages of East Branch and Hancock in Delaware County don't open for fishing until April 16 this year.
To get you in the mood for fishing, the Ashokan-Pepacton Watershed Chapter of Trout Unlimited is sharing several trout fishing videos in their newsletter, including a vintage 1969 video made by Trout Unlimited about the life cycle of the trout (see above).
For a more modern take on the atmospherics of trout fishing, watch a short film about fishing on the Esopus Creek in Ulster County near Phoenicia, below. Look closely and you'll see some familiar Route 28 sites like the Phoenicia Diner.
Below: "Autumn Tailwaters - Fall Fishing & Wild Trout in the Catskills," was produced by Day Trip Films in partnership with Orvis in 2015.
Above: The seventh annual Woodstock Writers Festival puts the spotlight on addiction, an epidemic in the Catskills. Image via the Woodstock Writers Festival's Facebook page.
Editor’s note: Robert Burke Warren, the author of the new novel “Perfectly Broken,” will be speaking about his new book on the fiction panel of the 2016 Woodstock Writers Festival at 2 p.m. on April 9. His wife, Holly George-Warren, a rock biographer, is speaking on the music panel at 4 p.m. on April 9. We’ve asked Robert to preview the festival for us.
The Woodstock Writers Festival, which runs for four days beginning on Thursday, April 7, continues to grow, defying naysayers’ claims that books are going the way of the dodo. Clearly, in Woodstock at least, books are doing fine, thank you.
Above: LIBRA, a new store on Main Street in Tannersville, was formerly a boutique in Brooklyn. Photo by Jessica Porter.
LIBRA, a women’s clothing and gift shop, opened in August 2015 on Main Street in Tannersville, featuring affordable and eco-conscious products made by local artists and designers and fair trade products from around the world.
Jennifer Parsons, LIBRA’s owner, is a retail veteran who ran a similar shop called Sweet Charity in Brooklyn for over a decade. Last year, after her husband started working a summer job near Windham, his hometown, she decided to open LIBRA in Tannersville.
As with many Tannersville businesses, Parsons opened her Main Street shop with the help of the Hunter Foundation, a nonprofit that works to restore historical buildings in the village.
(The Hunter Foundation had a hand in kick-starting Mama’s Boy Burgers and the Hudson-Chatham Winery, two other new businesses that opened last year in Tannersville.)
When the Foundation was looking for a tenant to occupy an empty shop at 5991 Main Street, Parsons decided that her experience and goals for the store were a perfect fit.
LIBRA’s products include women’s clothing and jewelry, organic beauty products, candles, diffusers, stationary, cards and wrapping supplies, as well as gifts for babies and children. The store has a robust online presence as well.
Above: A display at LIBRA. Photo by Jessica Porter.
“I hope LIBRA brings [to Tannersville] home goods, gifts and clothing with eclectic styles and excellent values that promote New York artists, fair trade companies and cottage industries that honor human rights and the environment,” Parsons said.
Above: Delaware County Economic Development Director Glenn Nealis, pictured here at an October county board meeting, is one of the seven members of the new Delaware County Tourism Advisory Board. Photo by Robert Cairns.
The members of the Delaware County Tourism Advisory Board, a group that will decide how money from the county's new bed tax will be spent, were appointed at the Wednesday, March 23 meeting of the Delaware County Board of Supervisors.
As outlined in the new law authorizing the two percent tax on overnight stays, the advisory board is comprised of the county's economic development director, two members of the board of supervisors and four representatives of the tourism industry. The law also provides that at least two of the industry representatives must be from lodging businesses.
As is typical of advisory committee appointments, board Chairman James Eisel made the appointments without a vote of the board. There was no discussion of the issue.
Economic Development Director Glenn Nealis was appointed to a three-year term, as was Teresa Allen, the co-chair of the Upper Delaware Business Coalition.
