| Watershed Post

This weekend: Community news potluck in Livingston Manor

Above: An editorial meeting of the youth-run newspaper Manor Ink. Photo by Manor Ink.

How can we make community news in the Catskills better? Come by the first-ever Community News Summit in Livingston Manor this Sunday and tell us in person over a potluck dinner.

The staff of the Watershed Post will be onhand along with other startup news organizations like the youth-run Livingston Manor newspaper Manor Ink, which is hosting the summit at the Catskill Arts Society on Main Street.

We'll be sharing ideas about emergency reporting, community engagement, ads vs. fundraising, and how to cover every town in an enormous rural area.

If you're a news junkie or just are just curious about how the news gets made, please attend! It's not community news without the community.

Left: Watershed Post editor Lissa Harris and Jim Ottaway, Jr., the chairman of the journalism committee of the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation. Photo taken July 22, 2013 by the staff of Manor Ink.

The summit is being organized by the Community Reporting Alliance, and features journalism start-ups and outlets that are funded by the Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation. Both the CRA and the Ottaway Foundation have funded the Watershed Post, and we can't say enough great stuff about them.

Community News Summit. Sunday, March 16, 2-5pm. Catskill Arts Society, 48 Main Street, Livingston Manor. Potluck dinner -- bring something to share. 845.701.6125 or email [email protected] for into and directions.

Here's the full press release about the summit below:

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

Community News Summit

Catskill Arts Society

Nicholas B. Ottaway Foundation

A very Catskills St. Patrick's Day

Above: The Edward Maloney Memorial Pipe Band marches in the 2013 St. Patrick's Day Parade in Delhi. Photo courtesy of the Delhi St. Patrick's Day Parade committee.

‘Tis time again to celebrate the Irish, those poetic and tenacious folks who’ve brought so much to the cultural feast. Suffer mightily they may have done, but as Irish fighter Bobby Sands put it, “Our revenge will be the laughter of our children.”

When folks like that party, it’s not to be missed. Here’s our guide to the region’s various St. Paddy's Day festivities.

DELAWARE COUNTY

On Saturday, March 15, come out to Plattekill Mountain in Roxbury for an all-day "St. Platty’s Day" celebration, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. They’re cooking corned beef and cabbage to go with the Irish drink specials and live entertainment. Outdoors, there will be a barbecue and a Shamrock Hunt.

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

Another snowstorm takes aim at the Catskills

Above: Still deep winter at the icy cathedral of Kaaterskill Falls. Photo taken March 5 by Rebecca Balzac; shared in the Watershed Post's Flickr group pool.

The Northeast is bracing for yet another late-season snowstorm, due to hit the Catskills region on Wednesday and continue into Thursday.

Winter storm watches have already been issued for most of the Catskills region. A watch issued by the National Weather Service in Albany covers Greene, Schoharie and Ulster counties; the NWS's Binghamton office has issued a winter storm watch that covers Delaware County along with much of Central New York.

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

This weekend: The Iditarod comes to Livingston Manor

Above: Kim Darst racing in the 2009 Iditarod. Photo contributed by Morgan Outdoors.

The Iditarod, the 1,000-mile sled dog race that takes place annually in Alaska, kicked off on March 1 this year. Today, dog teams and mushers are about halfway through the course, which stretches from Anchorage to Nome, and will keep running for about another week.

To celebrate the race, Kim Darst and her sled dog Cotton are visiting Morgan Outdoors in Livingston Manor tomorrow to talk about their harrowing experience in the 2009 Iditarod, which is the basis for a book, "Cotton's Tale."

According to the Star-Ledger in New Jersey, Darst had to choose between finishing the Iditarod and keeping Cotton alive:

The dog or the dream? Rookie Iditarod musher Kim Darst had a decision to make.

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

This weekend: "Sylvia," a doggy love triangle

What happens when the perfect woman is a dog? A canine-human love triangle. At least, that's what happens in "Sylvia," a play about a childless Manhattan couple and the eponymous dog that comes into their lives, opening at the Shandaken Theatrical Society tomorrow.

The show's charm comes from the fact that Sylvia is played by a human. Here's a snippet of dialogue, from the New York Times review of the show when it opened in NYC in 1995:

Greg, middle-aged and middle-class, returns to his Upper West Side apartment in the late afternoon accompanied by Sylvia, a beautiful, frisky young blonde he has just picked up in the park ...
Sylvia: "I think you're God."

Greg (trying to maintain order): "Stay, Sylvia. Stay. And sit."

Sylvia: "I want to sit near you."

Greg: "Well all right."

Sylvia moves to his side.

Sylvia (dreamily): "Nearer, my God, to Thee."

Greg (being severe): "O.K. As long as you sit."

Topics:

Arts

Tags:

shandaken theatrical society

Heart of the Catskills Humane Society

Mama's Boy Market

sylvia

Mons Nubifer Sanctus, a start-up contemplative Christian training center, launches in the Catskills

Left: James Krueger, the founder of Mons Nubifer Sanctus, a new Christian community launching in the Catskills.

A new retreat center that aims to bring contemplative Christian tradition of monasteries to secular laymen in the Catskills is holding its first gathering tonight, the first day of Lent.

James Krueger, the former executive director of the Pine Hill Community Center who is now an ordained deacon at Saint James’ Episcopal Church in Lake Delaware, is founding a new Christian retreat center called Mons Nubifer Sanctus -- Latin for "Holy Cloud-Bearing Mountain." His hope is to bring contemplative formation -- long periods of silence, stillness, and prayer -- to "people who are out in the world, people who are married," he told the Watershed Post recently.

Tags:

Place:

Open Space Institute acquires Hurleyville rail trail and Neversink farm

Above: A former rail bed in Hurleyville, part of a 9.2-mile stretch recently acquired by the Open Space Institute and slated for development into a public rail trail. Photo taken by Jesse Wall in October 2013; courtesy of the Center for Discovery.

The Open Space Institute recently announced a pair of big land acquisitions in Sullivan County: A 165-acre farm that will be used to teach farm skills to autistic children, and a 9.2-mile stretch of rail bed from the route of the former O&W railroad that will soon be developed into a public rail trail between Liberty and downtown South Fallsburg.

The rail bed runs through fields, forests and wetlands, and through the hamlets of Ferndale and Hurleyville. The Institute bought the 9.2-mile rail bed from O&W Associates, a company owned by the local Ingber family, said OSI spokesperson Jeff Simms.

Place:

Topics:

Tags:

Boil water advisory issued in Fleischmanns

The village of Fleischmanns is currently under a boil water advisory due to a break in the water main.

Village officials think there may be more than one leak in the system, deputy mayor Ben Fenton told the Watershed Post.

"Because of the severity of the lack of pressure, we think there are multiple breaks in the line," Fenton said.

Since early Wednesday morning, village workers have been working to find out where the breaks are so they can be repaired. Village residents were notified of the boil water advisory by a phone alert system, Fenton said.

Update, 2:36 p.m.: Village officials say a leak in a 10-inch main has been identified on Brush Ridge Road, and repairs are underway. Residents in the water district should continue to boil their water until further notice.

Update, Friday, March 14: Officials announced that the boil water advisory has been lifted.

Tags:

Place:

Topics:

Man gored at Grumpy Buffalo Farm

Grumpy buffalo: As advertised. Photo of Uncle Danny, one of the residents of Grumpy Buffalo Farm in Richmondville, from the farm's Facebook page.

A local farm worker was gored by a buffalo at the Grumpy Buffalo Farm in Richmondville on Saturday, several news outlets report.

According to an account in the Schenectady Daily Gazette, the 34-year-old man was wounded as he and a group of other workers were preparing to load 10 buffalo onto a cattle trailer. One of the animals charged the man, impaling him in the abdomen.

The Schoharie News reports that the man -- who has been identified as Richmondville resident Brian Ware -- was released from Albany Medical Center today.

Topics:

Place:

Tags:

Catskills edibles shine at NYC trade show

Above: Slickepott's Pam Lamont and Betty Acre Farm's Aissa O'Neil talked up their products at the Pure Catskills booth at a New York City trade show on Monday afternoon. Photos by Jennifer Strom.

For three days this week, you could sample Slickepott sweets and Catskill Food Co. sausage from Delhi, Catskill Provisions honey from Long Eddy and sweet Belgian waffles from Pika’s Farm Table in Lake Katrine, all in the same room.

Granted, it was a giant room: Those were just a few of the vendors who made the trek downstate to represent the Catskills food, farm and restaurant scene at the International Restaurant and Foodservice Show of New York, an annual trade show held in the Jacob Javits Convention Center in Manhattan.