Greene County sheriff Greg Seeley addressed a group of pro-gun activists at a videogame store in Catskill last week, along with Congressman Chris Gibson and New York State Assemblyman Pete Lopez.

The Daily Mail's W.T. Eckert reports that Seeley told the crowd in no uncertain terms that he opposes the SAFE Act, New York State's new gun control law:

Seeley has been a steadfast opponent of the SAFE Act. He told the crowd he stood before them representing no one party, person or agency.

“I’m talking Greg Seeley, Greene County taxpayer and your elected sheriff of Greene County,” Seeley said. “Everybody in this room knows my opinion about this New York State Safe Act, it stinks,” Seeley added. “Don’t believe it was written overnight. It has been in progress for the last year or two, ‘cause I don’t believe anybody can write that much, that fast overnight.”

Rural enough for ya? Photo of dirt road in the Delaware County town of Meredith by Flickr user somervillebikes; shared in the Watershed Post's Flickr group.

A newly-released report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends a change in the agency's definition of "rural," a shift that would make larger towns newly eligible for a variety of USDA grants.

The new definition, if adopted, would replace several different definitions currently used in different USDA grant programs with a single criterion: To be considered "rural," a community must have less than 50,000 people.  

Under the old definitions, to be eligible for community water and waste disposal grants and loans, a community could have no more than 10,000 people. For community facility grants and loans, the upper limit was 20,000 people.

In the city, it's all about location. Here in the mountains, it's all about elevation.

This morning, Watershed Post publisher Julia Reischel snapped this photo of snow clinging to every branch of every tree atop New Kingston Mountain Road, between New Kingston and Roxbury.

On a day like today, with a thaw underway and the ground mostly bare in the valley below, venturing above the snow line is like entering another world: sparkling, wintry and remote.

Update: Julia Reischel here, chiming in to answer a question posted to us by a reader on Facebook: What was the elevation? I just looked at a topographical map, and the snow started at almost exactly 2,000 feet on New Kingston Mountain this morning. Ditto for other mountains I drove by all around the Margaretville-Roxbury area.

Photo by Flickr user Jeff Adams; published under Creative Commons license.

A new state law intended to combat illegal recreational use of hydrocodone, a highly addictive opiate that is the main ingredient in Vicodin and other prescription painkillers, went into effect this week.

The law reclassifies hydrocodone from a Schedule III to a Schedule II drug, tightening restrictions on prescribing the drug and banning automatic refills. It also establishes a new statewide online database for doctors and pharmacists to report and track controlled narcotics, dubbed the Internet System for Tracking Overprescribing, or I-STOP.

Other opiates with high addictive potential, like oxycodone, have been on the Schedule II list for some time. Many public health advocates have argued that hydrocodone deserves to be regulated more strictly, citing the drug's widespread abuse, addictive nature and the frequency of hydrocodone-related deaths. 

A few of the 99 cats seized in January from the home of a cat hoarder in Wright settle into their new surroundings at the Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley. Photos from the Animal Shelter of Schoharie Valley's Facebook page; used with permission.

A month after 99 cats and a dog were seized from her filthy home on Route 146 in Wright, 50-year-old Irene VanDyke was arrested Monday and charged with animal cruelty, according to several news accounts.

VanDyke is slated to appear in Town of Wright Court on March 11 to answer to charges of animal cruelty and failure to provide sustenance, the Daily Gazette reports.