Hankerin' for a Harvest Vacation?

Most folks think of going on vacation to a place where there is something you like to do.  The doing could be skiing, antiquing, golf, beach relaxing…..you know the options.  There is a whole new world of vacationing that revolves around food.  Not just eating it, but going to where it’s grown, selecting from the freshest harvest, and bringing it home.   Some folks bring the extra foldable bag in their suitcase and fill it up with trinkets to bring home.  Foodie folks bring an empty cooler and a few milk crates and fill them up with a winters worth of provisions. There are staples like garlic braids, honey, jams and maple syrup, or new foods like raw milk to freeze.  There are fruits that are easy to freeze like blueberries, store like apples, dry like apricots, or turn into sauce like tomatoes,  There are veggies that are easy to pickle or freeze like beets, peas and beans.  Fill up the burlap sacks with items like winter squashes and potatoes and your root cellar will be overflowing. The coolers get filled to capacity with locally raised meats and poultry, smoked trout – add a little ice and you’re set for the ride home.

My grandmother always had 3 cases of apples in the garage over the winter that we’d eat out of.  She knew the orchards she liked and got to know the owners.  Over the years, the day trip upstate extended into an overnight trip with a stay at a local B&B and dinner at a favorite German restaurant.  You can experience the route your food takes too.  Come to the Catskills, enjoy the fall foliage, cruise the farmers markets and on farm stands, place an order for your Thanksgiving turkey, pick up some local wine or beer and you’re set.  So pack light and leave room to fill the car with the fruits of our local farmers labor.  It’s a gift to yourself that will keep on giving every time you sit down to a wonderful meal.

You can research great Catskills farms at the Watershed Ag Council's Pure Catskills website.  For great farm stay vacations - like Stone and Thistle Farm, Turquoise Barn, La Basse Cour B&B, and Stony Creek Farm via FeatherDown.  Check out our lodging properties on the Great Western Catskills website.  

Weathering Storms. Silver Linings.

The Cheese Barrel in Margaretville

Water, water everywhere.  The lushness of the mountains, the verdant green of the hayfields - all fed by the bountiful water and land that filters it down to the rivers, streams and reservoirs.  The towns here have weathered floods big and small. Folks talk about the flood in '96.  The 2006 flood. Most scars are gone. Rivers are now lined with huge rip-rap boulders to protect their banks.  Farm fields have new crops planted.  Riparian buffers planted with bushes and grasses to hold the soil.

Floods make people come together and help each other out with a contagious sense of community and pride.  It's what makes our small Catskills towns so welcoming and tactile. All that strength and warmth at the same time. So Irene pummeled almost every town in the county, in some manner this past weekend.  But she really threw her might at the villages of Margaretville, Arkville, and Fleischmanns.  And while we all know in our bones that these towns will be rebuilt, there is the sense that the storm did have a silver lining.

The towns along the East Branch of the Delaware River are working together to come up with a recreation plan that accesses the river and uses it to promote tourism and recreational opportunities.  Looking at these rivers towns, not for their ability to move timber and farm products downstream, but to move kayakers and to encourage fishing, are strong forces that can shape how we rebuild these communities.

Welcoming travelers has been something Delaware County has done with pride since the railroad starting bringing city folk up to escape the heat of the concrete jungle.  It is something we will do this weekend for Labor Day travelers, and the next weekend, and for fall foliage and Columbus weekend and for generations to come.  We look forward to your supporting our communities as you travel here and promise we'll try our hardest to put the polish back on our main streets.  We'll see you in the mountains!!