Above: The three top finishers in the men's pro category take the podium on Sunday at Tour of the Catskills, a three-day pro/am cycling race that ranges over some of the Catskills' most grueling road terrain in Greene and Ulster Counties. Left to right: Timothy Rugg of Kensington, MD (second place); Erik Levinsohn of Williamstown, MA (first place); and Kevin Massicotte of Toronto, Ontario (third place). Photo from Tour of the Catskills Facebook page. See full race results in all categories at Velocity Results.
Happy Monday, Catskills. Today's weather would be perfect, if it were September: A crisp, sunshiny day with highs in the 60s or low 70s, dropping down into the chilly 40s overnight in the mountains. Bundle up.
A new generation of New Yorkers is discovering the allure of Sullivan County's bungalow colonies, writes Upstater founder Lisa Selin Davis in Sunday's New York Times. About a dozen bungalow colonies have become co-ops in recent years, and are attracting young families from the boroughs who might plunk down $15,000 or $25,000 for a little seasonal cottage and access to the communal pool and grounds.
What the humble bungalow lacks in fancy appliances, it makes up for in a simpler life, Davis writes:
Perhaps most addictive is what parents call the “beautiful freedom” that colonies allow, for both parents and children. “You don’t need to set up play dates here,” said Rebecca Ballantine, a teacher from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and a mother of five, who also bought a three-bedroom unit at Buffalo Colony last year. “Your kids just walk outside.”
Best, say parents: They entertain themselves, and one another, all day long.
“I get up in the morning and make my daughter an egg sandwich and I see her at the end of the day,” said Ms. Pennell’s husband, Mark Pennell, whose daughter, Aidy, is 10. Parents feed whichever children show up at their bungalow come noon. “There’s a lot of mac and cheese,” said Alise Loebelsohn, a mural painter from Park Slope who bought a two-bedroom unit at Lake Huntington in 2010.
Getting rained on has become an annual tradition at the Saugerties Bed Race, whose participants -- and their mattresses -- got thoroughly soaked yesterday, for the third year in a row.
Keegan Ales has stepped in to rescue a planned fundraiser for Kingston's Queens Galley soup kitchen, which was abruptly shut down by the city of Kingston just a few days before its scheduled date at the city-owned San Severia event space. The fundraiser will be held at Keegan Ales on Saturday, August 10.
A 13-year-old Catskill boy has been charged with arson, after a couple of small fires were set at Walmart and Lowes stores in Catskill on Sunday evening. (According to a state police statement, the Walmart fire took out some yarn; the Lowes fire damaged a bunch of bathtub surrounds.)
A 16-year-old CSA farm in New Paltz has gone belly-up in the middle of the season -- and shareholders are, understandably, not too happy about it.
Five hundred campers make a lot of sewage. Greenville's recently-launched Camp Malka has been cited by the state Department of Environmental Conservation for several wastewater violations affecting Basic Creek, and has entered into a consent order with the DEC to fix their sewage problems. For those who love poring over documents, the full text of the consent order -- along with others from Region 4 -- is online in PDF form at the DEC's website.
Speaking of sewage problems: The mayor of Fleischmanns would appreciate it if you would all stop flushing those "flushable" baby wipes down the toilet. Pro tip: They're not really all that flushable, as a recent sewer main backup on Wagner Avenue can attest.
A crumbling shoreline on Catskill Creek is getting some work done.
A sexual abuse lawsuit filed by a former Greene County Jail inmate, which originally sought $1 million in damages, has been settled out of court for $65,000.
Two stalwarts of the post-Irene recovery effort -- Schoharie Recovery Inc. and Schoharie Area Long Term, Inc. (SALT) -- are merging into a single entity, like some kind of unstoppable nonprofit Voltron dedicated to fixing flood-damaged communities.
Time Warner Cable recently switched Woodstock's public access TV channel to a digital format -- and in the process, degraded the signal for viewers with older TV equipment, say aggrieved local program producers.
A Rock Hill house cleaner has been charged with stealing over $20,000 worth of jewelry from a Hurleyville house.
The murder trial of Paul Novak, who stands accused of strangling his wife Catherine Novak in 2008, will soon get underway in Monticello. Novak recently gave a jailhouse interview to Times Herald-Record reporter Leonard Sparks; he claims he's innocent and being framed by his ex-girlfriend.
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.
