Meet Steve Heller's Cro-Magnum: The body of a 2006 Dodge Magnum, the tail fins of a 1957 DeSoto, the bumpers of a couple of mid-century Cadillacs, and 160 silver bullets welded to the front grille. With its modern body and its collage of parts from different makes and vintages, the Cro-Magnum isn't your standard vintage hot rod.
In a story this week, the Wall Street Journal reports that Heller's eclectic approach to custom car-building is offending a few classic-car preservationists. But that's all right with Heller, who once welded the roof of a '47 Dodge to a cement mixer barrel to make a spaceship. For more of Heller's Chrome Age sculpture and automotive artistry, check out the website of his shop, Fabulous Furniture -- or just drive through Boiceville on Route 28 and look for the yard full of gleaming tailfins and metal dinosaurs.
Happy Wednesday, Catskills. After a late-summer break, the NewsShed is back. So are the signs of the season: asters and goldenrods blooming their hearts out along every roadside, apple trees heavy with fruit, and foliage looking more autumnal with every passing day.
September is Emergency Preparedness Month, as the Times Herald-Record's Heather Yakin notes in a column today. In case you need a news outlet to remind you to be ready for flooding, power outages and general cataclysm around here, consider yourself reminded.
As of September 1, it's ginseng harvest season in the Catskills, until the end of November. For this week's Walton Reporter, Lillian Browne talked to a couple of local ginseng experts, who say the herb grows best on the cooler side of a mountain, and that deer are a bigger threat to the rare plants than human overcollecting.
Two years later, the Catskills are still cleaning up after the Irene floods. Those efforts are getting a $9 million boost, in the form of six streambank stabilization projects recently announced by the New York City DEP, to be carried out by local soil and water conservation districts. The projects are located in Lexington, Shandaken, Fleischmanns and Arkville.
If we build it, will they come? The Schoharie County town of Cobleskill is about to get a $9.2 million sewer extension along Route 7. The lack of public sewer and water along Route 7 has been scaring businesses off for decades, say local officials, who hope the project will lure more jobs to the region.
In other sewer news -- which there always seems to be plenty of around here -- the USDA recently agreed to fund a long-planned project to irrigate the SUNY Delhi golf course with treated wastewater from the Delhi sewer plant. Officials say the project will ease the college's water demand on the Little Delaware River, cut down on the pollution being discharged into the West Branch by the plant, and allow several local businesses to expand by increasing the plant's capacity.
Did you make it to Bovina Farm Day last weekend? Photographer David Torke was on hand, and shared a bunch of photos with us. Clearly we're going to have to get our hands on one of those righteous Bovina T-shirts.
Almost a century ago, Italian stone craftsman Joe Moshini built four miniature stone castles around Swan Lake. Long forgotten and buried in brush and debris, Moshini's castles are now capturing the attention of some local volunteers, who have exhumed one and turned it into a tourist attraction.
Speaking of debris: The town of Catskill has had enough of the trash strewn around the Friar Tuck resort in violation of local ordinances, and is seeking bids for cleanup at the site.
Three Ulster County towns -- Rosendale, Rochester and Marbletown -- are hoping to use the shuttered Rosendale Elementary School to house their town halls and justice courts. But to get that done, they'll need special permission from the state legislature to conduct town business beyond town borders. State senator Cecilia Tckaczyk is working on getting the legislature to return to Albany to pass the measure.
A lot of people in Saugerties are deeply upset about the town's new "smart" water meters, which use radio frequencies to send data wirelessly when "pinged" by a meter-reading truck. At a raucous public meeting last week that drew dozens of shouting Saugertiesians (and a few Woodstockers), a representative from meter manufacturer Sensus walked out in frustration, calling the crowd a "lynch mob."
Monks go digital: The Zen Mountain Monastery in Mount Tremper recently released its liturgy in Nook and Kindle digital editions.
Another local monastery, Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Monastery in Woodstock, recently celebrated the 90th birthday of its abbot, Khenpo Kharthar Rinpoche. The Rinpoche has been in monastic life for 78 years.
Missing a pit bull or two in the Delhi/Meredith area? Some good Samaritan recently found a pair of pits "full of porcupine quills" and took them to the veterinarian in Delhi. There's a painful-looking picture of one of the dogs posted on Craig's List.
Recycling hundreds of pounds of farm plastic is a little tougher than sorting your soda bottles into the bin at home. But thanks to a recently-launched program by Cornell Cooperative Extension of Delaware County, local farmers are recycling more lately -- and saving $87 a ton on disposal fees while they're at it.
Middletown is mourning the death of one of its most beloved citizens: Bob Hubbell, proprietor of Hubbell Inc. and the patriarch of a well-known local family, who died last Thursday. A service for Hubbell will be held Saturday at 11am, at the St. James Episcopal Church in Lake Delaware.
A Long Island teenager was killed in an ATV crash in the town of Halcott on Saturday. The crash also injured another teenager. The Greene County Sheriff's Department is investigating.
The River Reporter notes that two people died in ATV crashes in their coverage area this summer, one of them an eight-year-old boy, and urges its readers to be safe.
NewsShed is the Watershed Post's snappy little weekday digest of news, weather and hot bloggy goodness from around the Catskills. Got a hot tip or a photo for the NewsShed? Send it to editor@watershedpost.com.
