Above: Brian Olenych, fresh out of the sauna, is warm enough for anything in Arkville on Saturday, Feb. 14. Photos courtesy of Marcia Olenych.
This February is in the top five of the coldest Februarys on record, according to the National Weather Service in Binghamton.
It's been single-digit temperatures all month, with killer wind chills on top.
Above: Get your fill of cuckoo clocks and schnitzel in the Greene County Catskills. Photo by Katherine Speller.
German and Swiss immigrants have made their mark on Greene County, which is home to the most Alpine of the Catskill region's peaks. Be sure to grab your beer stein and press your best lederhosen before checking out your own little taste of Deutschland in the Catskills.
At the Bavarian Manor Inn (866 Mountain Ave., Purling, 518-622-3261, bavarianmanor.com) patrons can enjoy award-winning veal schnitzels: classic Viennese Wiener Schnitzel, Hungarian Gypsy Schnitzel made with onions, mushrooms and paprika sauce, and Holsteiner Schnitzel, which is topped with fried egg, anchovies and capers. The German Wurst Platter combines bauernwurst, weisswurst, bratwurst, pork, sauerkraut and (a crowd favorite) potato pancakes.
Above: Cold Spring House in 2008. Photo by Erika Karl via Flickr.
The Tannersville village board has decided to demolish the mouldering ruins of the historic Cold Spring House, a once opulent 200-room wooden hotel that catered to Jewish guests during the Catskills' golden "mountain house" era in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The hotel, which was built in the 1890s, has been slowly decaying at its location on 55 Spruce Street for decades, according to a 2012 column by Greene County historian David Dorpfield in the Register-Star newspaper.
The Key Bank building at 53 Main Street in Phoenicia was destroyed by fire on Monday night, Feb. 16, despite the efforts of about 100 local firefighters who showed up to battle the blaze.
Several local residents called 911 to report the fire around 9:33 p.m., said Phoenicia Fire Chief Gary Carr. The fire was brought under control quickly, and there were no injuries.
Firefighters from Phoenicia, Pine Hill, Big Indian, Fleischmanns, Olive, West Hurley and Woodstock companies responded to the fire, along with the Shandaken Ambulance Service and a Mobile Life support team.
For Carr and his crew, this was the second large fire in the past week. On Friday, Feb. 13, the company responded to a structure fire on West Street.
On the scene, Carr said that the building appeared to be a total loss, but the next day, Tuesday, Feb. 17, he said that the damage was not as bad as it had appeared in the dark.
Above: Wild boars. Via the New York Department of Environmental Conservation.
The owner of a Hancock hunting preserve must destroy his herd of illegal Eurasian boars by March 31 or face a $10,000 fine from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Sixty-six-year-old Zbigniew Truniarz owns Pond Ridge Hunts shooting preserve in the Delaware County town of Hancock. He also owns another location in the Sullivan County town of Bethel, according to newspaper reports.
Last year, when DEC officials inspected the Hancock Pond Ridge Hunts location, they found 40 to 80 boars, including many piglets, in violation of a new anti-boar breeding law, according to a Jan. 30 consent order. The consent order does not mention Truniarz's Bethel property.
Above: A Save Cooper Lake poster, from SaveCooperLake.org.
Niagara Bottling Company has abandoned its proposal to bottle and sell water from Cooper Lake in the Ulster County town of Woodstock.
The Daily Freeman, which along with the Woodstock Times and the Times-Herald Record has been doing a bang-up job covering the months-long protest movement that has sprouted in Ulster County in opposition to the plan, has the scoop:
The Niagara Bottling Co. has given up its controversial plan to build a plant near TechCity that would have drawn water from the city of Kingston’s reservoir.
"All sounds are sharper in winter." That quote, attributed to famed 19th-century naturalist John Burroughs, is how arts writer Jennifer Kabat begins her hour-and-a-half-long guided audio walk through the winter landscape of the Catskills.
It's part of a project that Kabat, along with her collaborators, New Zealand artist Kate Newby, curator Tim Saltarelli and writer Anna Moschovakis, are calling the "January February March."
The project is part podcast, part art installation and part snowy winter ramble through two Delaware County towns: Middletown, near the center of the Catskill Park, and Hobart, the home of a large oxycodone factory and the "Hobart Book Village."
Above: Snowmen in love in Roxbury promote Sunday's Hearts in the Hamlet event, via Facebook.
Just when we desperately need a celebration to take the edge off the cabin fever and the late-winter blahs, here it is Valentine’s Day. What could be lovelier? In the Catskills, love is something that’s celebrated year round, but this weekend it’s the star of the show. Come out and create and play and feast and dance. All events are happening on Valentine's Day itself -- Saturday, Feb. 14 -- unless otherwise indicated.
DELAWARE COUNTY
Top: Ramona Sunderwirth, in red, is standing on the far right.
Ramona Sunderwirth, a part-time Bovina resident and doctor who treated Ebola patients in Sierra Leone last year, is part of a group being honored for fighting the disease by President Barack Obama on Wednesday, Feb. 11 at 1:45 p.m. Watch the livestream above.
Above: A map of multi-use trails at the beginning of the Elm Ridge Trail in the Elm Ridge Wild Forest in Windham in 2011. Photo by Andy Arthur, via Flickr.
Mountain biking, hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country skiing are getting so popular in the Greene County town of Windham that the New York State Department of Conservation wants to build more multi-use trails in the Elm Ridge Wild Forest, a wilderness area in the eastern escarpment region of the Catskill Park.
The DEC is taking public comments on a plan to add five new trails in the Elm Ridge Wild Forest, which has seen "considerable growth" in non-motorized recreational use in the past six years, according to a proposed Elm Ridge Wild Forest Unit Management Plan Amendment.
