| Watershed Post

We're putting it together as we speak and it's looking good: Our 24-page print pocket compendium of all things Catskills and outdoorsey. Today is the last day to get in touch with me to place your ad -- we put it to bed this week.

Some prime spots are still available. Send art to [email protected] or call me at 845-481-0155.

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From the Publisher

Couple working to revive Videofreex in film

A lot of things were still new in 1969. Rock festivals and consumer video, to name two. At the storied Woodstock Music and Art Festival in Bethel, New York, a few young souls were combining the two, using their new-fangled cameras to record what even then felt like a historic event. (Breakfast in bed for 300,000, anyone?)

Their innovative energy drew the attention of a CBS network executive who thought he'd discovered sometthing new and great – which he had, and he and the group that became the Videofreex worked on developing a proposal for CBS for months. It must have felt like an amazing break to the young artists, diligently training their lenses on Truth. It got Don West fired in disgrace.

Undaunted, the Freex kept the cameras rolling for ten more years, moving to Lanesville and starting an indie TV station there. Now, a Catskills couple, Jenny Raskin and Jon Nealon, are mining those incredibly rich archives to make “Here Come the Videofreex.”

Watershed Post: So the whole Videofreex thing was born at Woodstock, like that famous baby?

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Bikers brave the devilish hills of Greene County for Tour of the Catskills

Above: Bikers roll out for a men's pro event in the Tour of the Catskills race over the weekend. Via YouTube.

This weekend, road bikers from across the country descended on Greene County for the fifth annual Tour of the Catskills. The three-day race pits cyclists against about 140 miles of road, and some of the bike racing world's most notoriously grueling hills.

With 751 cyclists registered, 2012 was the biggest Tour of the Catskills yet, organizers wrote on the event's website.

Taking home top honors in the pro races were 52-year-old Christine Schryver of Rochester for the women, and 25-year-old rookie Michael Woods of Ottawa, Canada for the men.

Woods had a rough time with the Devil's Kitchen, he told the Daily Mail:

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Is the battle over between Shandaken and its largest landowners?

A six-year tax battle between Shandaken and its largest landowners may have ended on July 20 when a jury ruled in favor of the town. However, despite their latest defeat, the landowners have not thrown in the towel just yet.

The group of landowners is weighing whether to appeal a recent Ulster County Supreme Court decision that found that Shandaken could raise assessments of properties on more than 20 acres of undeveloped land, according to plaintiff Brian Powers.

“We are still assessing what the right course of action will be,” said Powers, who said he was the last landowner to join the suit.

The tax disagreement between the town and the 18 landowners reached a breaking point on Friday, July 20, after the Ulster County Supreme Court in Kingston concluded that Shandaken had a “rational basis” for raising the assessments. The court found that the tax hike was constitutional, according to a press release sent out on Tuesday, July 24 by Shandaken Town Supervisor Rob Stanley.

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From the editor: We're taking a break

Dear WP reader,

We're on posting hiatus through the end of the week. We may post a few news items here and there, but for the most part, we'll be focusing on offline projects.

(Full disclosure: Some of those projects involve replacing the Watershed Postmobile, which has died a sudden and unexpected death, and celebrating the fourth birthday of the youngest member of the team, which is today.)

We are here in the office, and reachable by phone and online again after a brief outage yesterday. Our publisher, Julia Reischel, is taking ad inquiries for the website and our upcoming print outdoors guide.

In the meantime, if you're jonesing for a local news fix, here are a few things you should check out:

-This Weekend. It's looking particularly snazzy at the moment. There's a lot of great stuff happening around the Catskills this weekend.

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From the Editor

Opera stars take the stage in Phoenicia tomorrow, but ORDA's Ted Blazer may steal the spotlight

Tomorrow, the Phoenicia Festival of the Voice opens with "The Benefit," an operatic comedy starring Maria Todaro and Michelle Jennings.

But even before the show begins, all eyes will be on another VIP: Ted Blazer, president of the Olympic Regional Development Authority, which is in the process of taking over the state-run Belleayre Ski Center. Blazer is slated to deliver a few opening remarks before the show.

Blazer's visit is much-anticipated in the region. Since state lawmakers announced early this year that Belleayre would be transferred to ORDA from the Department of Environmental Conservation, rumors have been swirling, and many locals who depend on Belleayre for a paycheck or the health of their business have been anxious for details about the ORDA handoff.

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Delaware River: Now a little more free of trash (and human spines)

Above: Some of the trash collected at this year's annual Delaware River cleanup, sponsored by Kittatinny Canoes in Milford, PA. Photo from Kittatinny's Facebook wall.

For over twenty years, a dedicated group of volunteers has been making an annual four-day pilgrimage to the Delaware River to do the heavy, mucky work of pulling trash from the river bottom.

Today's Sullivan County Democrat features a few of the doughty trash warriors, one of whom tells the reporter that the river is getting cleaner every year:

Jeff Helms from Stroudsburg, PA, described how, “When I first started you could find a bottle or can every five feet – now it’s hard to find one. It’s been cleaned up.” He’s been doing the cleanup since the first one in 1992 and thought there’s less trash because people have began to care about the environment, and because it’s clean – it’s not so easy to just throw trash in it.

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Fresh: Two Old Tarts

Above: John Schulman (left) and Scott Finley in their new Bovina bake shop. Photos by Andrew Wyrich.

When John Schulman and Scott Finley were deciding on a name for their soon-to-be-opened café, one option in particular immediately stuck.

“We just kept saying ‘tart,’ ‘tart,’ ‘tart,’ and then Scott said to me ‘you’re an old tart’ and the minute he said it we were both like ‘that is it!” John said. “It just makes you smile.”

The café, which opened in just over two weeks, might have had an expedited grand opening, but its coffee drinks and baked goods have been a hit for not only the residents of Bovina, but people from across the Catskills.

Two Old Tarts, complete with cream-colored trays of baked goods, WiFi and a pick-your-own vinyl player featuring three generations of collections, has been going full steam since opening.

Watershed Post: So, you said you had to open the store in 16 days. What was that like? What did you have to prepare in order to open?

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Opera fans mob the Walkway over the Hudson

A flash mob of opera fans staged an impromptu performance on the Walkway Over the Hudson on Saturday morning to promote this weekend's Phoenicia International Festival of the Voice.

VoiceFest executive director Kerry Henderson sent us these photos of the mob, which looks particularly epic against a gray sky.