Above: Taking the plunge at Fawn's Leap, a popular swimming hole on Kaaterskill Creek. It's not uncommon for a few of those who brave the 24-foot drop from the cliff each summer to end up with serious injuries -- so if you must leap, leap with care. Photo taken in June by Timothy Schubert; published under Creative Commons license.
The weather's been acting more properly Catskillian lately. Nighttime lows in the 40s? Welcome to July in the mountains.
News flash: People like swimming holes. The New York Times Style section, on its perpetual quest for the ultimate weekend idyll, headed for the Catskills this week to document downstaters' obsession with our local swimming holes. The article, "Heading Upstate In Search of a Watery Eden," cites Fawn's Leap, Big Deep and the Millstream as popular haunts for vacationers -- to the dismay of locals, who often find their favorite swimming holes invaded by unfamiliar hordes and strewn with trash.
There are small victories, though. Here's a hilarious quote from an Upper West Side poet who braved the Esopus Creek in a rented Town Tinker tube recently:
"There was this one particularly rough stretch of rapids, almost like a small waterfall,” he said. “On the shore at the base of it, two locals had set up lawn chairs with a cooler and were watching all the tubers face-plant in the water as they reached the bottom. It was like the D.I.Y. edition of ESPN."
Things apparently haven't changed too much around here in the last couple of centuries. A curatorial intern at the New Britain Museum of American Art writes recently of Thomas Cole's 1826 painting The Clove, Catskills:
Cole shows us a pristine, undisturbed world. But in actuality, the area was over-run by hotels, places for a snack or tea, hiking trails, and tourists, tourists everywhere.
A former Palenville resident who was abandoned as a newborn in 1953, on a front porch in the Greene County town of Athens, is digging into the mystery of her birth, the Daily Mail's Kyle Adams reports in a gripping feature.
The village of Coxsackie will be getting some new sidewalks and street lights soon.
The Stamford Village Improvement Association's special flower-watering ladder has gone missing. Return what you have stolen! Return the ladder! (Preferably to the Stamford Gym and Fitness at 32 Main Street, no questions asked.)
After almost two years of living in Irene-imposed exile, Joe and Barb Fuller have come back home to their flood-damaged North Blenheim house at last. Welcome back, folks.
The village of Stamford intends to sue Delaware County and the state of New York for failing to pay rent on an emergency communications tower atop Mount Utsayantha. The back payment owed? $6,620.
Windsockgate in Windham is heating up as a locals-versus-transplants issue. A couple of longtime residents recently lashed out at the Windham Chamber of Commerce for encouraging people to hang patriotic windsocks in violation of town sign law, and the town board for not ticketing the windsock-hangers for it. Here's an excerpt from a fiery letter written to the board by Jeri Miltenberger:
"...having lived in Windham for more than 40 years, I find it extremely insulting that people move to Windham and want to change its beauty. Why live here if you don't like it?...
...'The sign law was written, as we all remember, to stop the EYE TRASH that the Chamber is [now] trying to inflict on the town. As for the sign law, I strongly suggest that the law should be enforced and NOT amended."
Hassel "Junior" Barber, the Kingston homeless man who's being hailed as a hero for returning a cash-stuffed wallet, would like everybody to stop trying to reward him and just leave him alone, thanks.
An overpass over Broadway in Kingston, dubbed "the worst bridge in Ulster County," is slated to be replaced in 2015.
A resolution offered in honor of the 400-year-old Two Row Wampum Treaty between Dutch settlers and local Iroquois was too political for the present-day village of Saugerties, whose trustees recently passed a more watered-down version.
Planning to see Carmen at the Belleayre Music Festival this Saturday? Check out the Music Fest's Twitter feed: They're doing a two-for-one ticket deal today until 5:30pm.
Killing a police animal will now be a felony in New York State, starting November 1.
A fallen tree knocked out power to about 3,000 Central Hudson customers in eastern Ulster County this morning. Restoration crews should be wrapping things up by lunchtime.
New Paltz Times columnist Richard Parisio visits Woodchuck Lodge in Roxbury, the former home and gravesite of John Burroughs, and finds that the real magic is in the fields and forests around it. (We think Mr. Burroughs would agree.)
Daily Freeman publisher emeritus Ira "Fuzz" Fusfeld is retiring for real-real. Freeman alum Hugh "Scoop" Reynolds, who now writes his indispensable Ulster County political column for the Kingston Times, has some memories from the good old days, when reporters had film-noir nicknames and newspapers made money.
NewsShed, our snappy little weekday digest of news, weather and hot bloggy goodness from around the Catskills, is a new item here at the WP. Got a hot tip or a photo for the NewsShed? Send it to editor@watershedpost.com.
