Schools are closed across the Catskills this Friday morning, and it looks like a snow globe out there. The Hudson Valley Weather Facebook page reports that the snowfall ranges from 1 to 10 inches deep across the region.
We want proof! Share your snow photos with us, and we will add them to our slideshow above.
Top: John Lopez works in the kitchen of J&K North Main Bakery. He is looking for a bigger space to move into. Photo by Jason Dole.
Above: A slideshow of photos from Sullivan County bakeries.
On New Year's Eve, Livingston Manor’s Flour Power Bakery, a high-profile local business with a devoted following, closed abruptly. A brief email to friends and customers titled “There will be no more bakery” made it clear that Flour Power’s doors will not reopen.
Small, independent, artisanal bakers have been on the rise in Sullivan County. Over the past decade, many new entrepreneurs have emerged in the region to tap into a growing market for local food.
But lately, the ranks of Sullivan County bakers have been thinning.
Above: The popular Flour Power Bakery in Livingston Manor closed its doors this winter. Photo by Jason Dole.
After a week of forecasts that seemed more like shots in the dark than science, the National Weather Service has issued winter weather advisories for the entire reading area. NWS Binghamton has advisories for Delaware, Sullivan and Otsego counties, while its counterpart agency in Albany has covered Greene, Schoharie and Ulster.
The advisories call for for a range of snow accumulation with the possibility of anywhere from three to seven inches across the region through tonight, tapering to flurries Friday morning. For forecast updates on the track of this slow-moving storm, check in with Hudson Valley Weather's Facebook page, where the cool kids get their forecasts, and be sure to send us snow photos from your neck of the woods.
The Wild Roses, a belly dance troupe from West Taghkanic who will perform Saturday night at the Woodstock Goddess Fest. Photo by Todd Hyson; from Goddess Fest's Facebook page.
Come bask in the energy of the Great Mother this weekend at the Colony Café in Woodstock. The 8th Annual Woodstock Goddess Fest kicks off Friday night with exuberant drumming of Fre Atlast and Birds of a Feather, after which the lineup segues into a series of delights from the East.
Above: Screenshot of a video from a Wednesday morning press conference by Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver and fellow Assembly Democrats on a bill that, if passed into law, will place a two-year moratorium on fracking in New York State. Source: The Albany Times-Union's Capitol Confidential blog. Watch the full video below.
A bill placing a two-year moratorium on hydraulic fracturing in New York State passed the Assembly by a wide margin on Wednesday, March 6, and is now headed for the Senate, according to several news reports.
If signed into law, bill A.5424, which has local Assemblyman Kevin Cahill as one of its sponsors, would suspend gas drilling permits in the Marcellus and Utica shale until May 15, 2015, and require the state to complete a review of the public health impacts of hydrofracking before any permits can be issued.
Above: The location of the new cell phone tower in Arkville. Screenshot from SBA Communications' SBA Sites mapping tool.
A new cellphone tower in Arkville is live and broadcasting Verizon 4G LTE service across the village of Margaretville and the rest of the town of Middletown, according to a press release issued today by Governor Andrew Cuomo.
The town of Middletown has had Verizon cell service since the fall of 2011, thanks to a portable cell phone tower on a truck bed that was brought to the village to provide connnectivity in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Irene.
Last fall, according to the Catskill Mountain News, a Florida company called SBA Communications built a permanent cell tower on a piece of land off County Rte. 38 in Arkville that is owned by Peter Molnar.
Utility poles near Binghamton. Photo by Flickr user Enoch Ross; photo published under Creative Commons license.
Rural utility companies call it the "last mile problem": Even in places where there is a network nearby that carries data, the final connections that bring service to individual houses are the most difficult and expensive to build. In the rural Catskills, where houses are far from one another and remote from population centers, many homes and communities still lack access to high-speed internet or cable television.
Some of those areas may soon get new broadband access. On Tuesday, New York State Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the awarding of $25 million in grants to fund the expansion of broadband networks in underserved parts of the state, through the Connect NY Broadband Grant Program.
The latest local casualty of the crisis in the newspaper industry: Jobs and wages at the Kingston-based Daily Freeman, whose corporate parent, the Journal Register Company (JRC), is emerging from bankruptcy for the second time in four years.
In February, the JRC went on the bankruptcy auction block, and was sold for $122.15 million to the sole bidder: A group called 21st Century CMH Acquisition Co., a subsidiary of former JRC owners Alden Global Capital. In a bit of corporate sleight of hand, the ailing news chain's owners were able to shed debt and obligations to workers through the bankruptcy process, then essentially buy the business back again.
While driving near the Pepacton Reservoir last weekend, reader Lillian Browne snapped the photo above. She writes:
"I was traveling along 206 around the Pepacton Reservoir...and this majestic beauty swooped down in front of me -- two of these beautiful creatures flew in to suggest that a mammoth turkey vulture vacate their hunting lands."
Early March is prime time for eagle-spotting in the Catskills. And the local population is on the rise: In recent years, bald eagles are an increasingly common sight near New York City's vast reservoirs and along the banks of Catskills creeks.
On Saturday evening, March 2, a truck towing an empty snowmobile trailer on State Route 8 in Deposit struck and killed a woman. The truck's driver is charged with vehicular manslaughter, according to a news release from the New York State Police.
The victim, 79-year-old Barbara Seymour, was walking on Route 8 near her house around 6:55pm when the truck hit her. Seymour was rushed by ambulance to Wilson Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.
The driver of the truck, 56-year-old James Gruscavage of Deposit, was charged with vehicular manslaughter in the second degree. He was arraigned in the Town of Deposit Court and remanded to the Delaware County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail.
The New York State Police is still investigating the incident.
