Above: "Fiddleheads", May 8, 2012, at Frost Valley YMCA, by Robin White. Just one of the 60-odd photos submitted to our photo contest.
Wow, you Catskills folks take a lot of photos.
Submissions from across the Catskills poured in last night to our 2013 Catskills Outdoor Guide Photo Contest. At midnight, when the contest ended, we had a total of sixty-something entries. (I'm not sure of the exact number because of duplicates.)
Eight Wednesdays, May 29/June 5 – 26, July 3 – 17 From 6:30 to 9:00PM $210/$180 WKC Member
Fiction Writing Workshop is celebrating its 31th session!
This ongoing workshop welcomes both new and experienced writers. Call the office for more information and to register. Students are asked to bring a sample of either a story or a small piece. Read more
Above: Figure 1. The allocation of Carbon into structure, storage, and defense in lodgepole pine. Tree components with low numbers represent strong priorities for C allocations, whereas components with high numbers indicate a low priority for C allocation. Source: Ecological Society of America. Read more
Many homeowners in Upstate New York are opting for metal roofs for their homes. The advantages include longer life, better snow shedding, no chance for moss to grow on the roof and extremely low maintenance. Many roofers do not like to do metal roofs because of the difficulty of doing a professional job on houses with several valleys, dormers and chimneys. We at Alpine have been doing metal roofs for homes for nine years. We use only the best quality panels and have had very high customer satisfaction. Read more
Brood II: It sounds like a low-budget horror movie. But it's real, and it's poised to engulf the East Coast from Georgia to Connecticut, an onslaught of giant bugs that have lain dormant underground for the last 17 years.
The periodical cicada is the Methuselah of insects, spending long years underground in larval form before emerging en masse in tremendous numbers. Groups of 13-year or 17-year periodical cicadas that emerge together are known as 'broods,' and New York State is home to several of them, along with several species of annual cicadas that emerge every year. The last mass cicada emergence in New York, of the 17-year Brood XIV, happened in 2008. Read more
Most likely the roof you have now is an asphalt shingle roof of the “3-tab” type. Asphalt naturally repels water, and it’s a readily available commodity so long as we continue to use crude oil. The ceramic granules on the face of the shingles protect the asphalt from breaking down in the sun. Asphalt is a by-product of refining crude oil. While they still make 3-tab shingles, they only come with a 30-year warranty. At Alpine, we highly recommend spending slightly more for architectural shingles. Read more
Carving, cutting, chopping, building, sawing, shaping, and finishing. The Woodsmen’s Festival at Hanford Mills Museum celebrates the many ways people use and work with wood. A perennial highlight of the Festival, which will be held on Saturday, May 4 from 10 am – 5 pm, is the lumberjack skills demonstrated by the Woodsmen’s Team from the SUNY College of Agriculture and Technology at Cobleskill. The men and women of the Woodsmen’s Team, who participate in intercollegiate competitions and practice five nights a week, will demonstrate cross-cut sawing, overhand and underhand chop, ax throwing, and other lumberjack skills.
Throughout the day, the Museum will give tours and demonstrations of its historic water-powered sawmill and woodworking machines. For more than a century, Hanford Mills provided East Meredith and surrounding communities with the lumber needed to build homes, barns and fences, as well as finished wood products, including butter tub covers and milk bottle crates for the region’s many dairy farms. Historic cooking demonstrations will be taking place in the John Hanford Farmhouse, where visitors also can learn more about home life in the 1920s. Read more
Above: Just some of the entries in this year's Catskills Outdoor Guide photo contest, as pictured on our 
