Spring! Letters from America By Candia Peterson
Mid-April and my favourite Sycamore stands out against a bare background The Catskill Mountains lie to the West of the Hudson River valley and about three hours north of New York City. Not really mountains in the Alpine sense, the region mixes densely forested rolling hills with arable farmland in the numerous river valleys that run through them. Villages are small and quaint, mostly dating back to before the Civil War and, for the most part, it is a sparsely populated and a very lovely part of the US in which to live.
There is, however, a catch and as I was remarking to my son earlier this week, there is no getting around it, winter in the Catskills definitely lasts six months with the other three seasons sharing the remaining half of the year. The reality is that from mid-November to mid-May, we are subject to a lot of snow, perishing temperatures with their accompanying frostbite warnings from the local met office (we managed minus 30 C for about two weeks solid this year) strong winds and a general sense of living inside a fridge.
June 2022 Volume 7 Issue 4
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