Portage

Link it Up

2008-08-29T00:00:32Z

New York, We could do alot better at protecting Farmland. Image current 0107.

2 from the Times. As farmland is lost to development, and CSA's are booked in advance. And then Cappelli, everybodys Catskill Vegas boner, gets some good ink on just how much he respects Planning Commissions. Look at this 'farmers' car park roof. Gentleman farming is good when the gentlemen realizes how many farmers a gentlemen needs to farm.

It you havent ever checked out Wharton Esherick, you should here.

My dream country property right now (and has been). Give me bucks Buddy, I'll make it hum. This NYC designer is building a real piece of modern country on a hill in Columbia County, and bloggin it. It gives pause to remind folks that they can get an agricultural tax write off on their property taxes if they let the land get worked. Stumbled on this CT styled blog, Rural Intelligence, along with this mahattanized gardner, Away to Garden, both give a cobble hill like odor. Somebody was cruising Columbia County taking great shots of old buildings, on flickr. How many can you place? Hudson SHOUT @!#% YEA. Hits Hudson NY! tag.

Yes, I Still Love You New York

2008-08-19T02:35:48Z

Columbia County Land in Farms

2008-08-14T01:50:21Z

Eastfield Village

2008-07-27T17:56:36Z

Donald Carpentier is an expert in many historic trades, but I'm most interested in his architectural preservation. At 19 he begin deconstructing historic structures, transporting them, and rebuilding them on the east field of his fathers farm. In 1971 Eastfield Village was established. Almost 40 years later Eastfield stands a testament to the energetic profundity of old buildings, techniques, and materials. Used as a movie set for films, a setting for courses in early american crafts, and a place you hope you'll be invited to visit, this 'village' is alluring and inaccessible most of the time. Twenty-six in all, the buildings have a robust character, rebuilt and re-calibrated with expert craftsmanship & appreciation. Yet they hover, psychedelically realized spaces, rooting down with all their mercurial depth. Two shots below from H.V.V.A, who were invited to visit in 2004. Also, the pilot episode of Great American Craftsman w\ Don, lets hope a network picks this one up. I would LOVE to see the process of moving an 1800 cape to my Backyard! Following which, a lifted snapshot from a tour on the Eastfield website. An article on a visit w/some background. Another from the Maine Antique Digest. Eastfield is on a muddy road in East Nassua, NY.

A Boot Scrape in Albanate

2008-07-26T15:41:55Z

Columbia County Farms

2008-07-25T23:42:27Z

A lifted chart of Columbia County farms by harvest (decline), 1997 against 2002. The only farms that didn’t decline from were equine, dairy, and sugar cane, hay, & other. It would be interesting to drill down on the cane hay other to see just exactly where that growth is coming from. I have it on good word from Eric the Farmer that hops prices have seen rapid growth, now fetching in the neighborhood of fifty bucks a bushel.

Lasher

2008-07-25T23:31:44Z

Widewaters Filth on Route 9

2008-07-25T05:00:00Z

Ole’ widewaters suburban sprawl in greenport, cutting another incision into an already scabbed route 9. embarrassing chain stores and cheap eats. We generally get spoiled in Columbia/N.Dutchess with relatively less sprawl, this 9 line being our most nefarious. I like the abandoned Hudson Theatre, it facilitated a false hope that the developers had also looked the other way. Nope. They’re on their way, and they’re hungry, & the Columbia County Planning Comm gladly bellhops our landscape onto their balance sheet. So a few photos snapped from the steering wheel, hoping to pick and itch this away. Little Town Views had some good posts (per usual) on the corporate calculus used to supplant the proposal, with bogus tax figures and mitigated impacts. I don’t know how the SEQR looked. They should sub-region our valley better. Kinderhook for Good Growth voiced an active concern.

Roxbury Ecological Survey

2008-07-25T01:56:16Z

Columbia County’s Roxbury Farm most intuitively took it upon themselves to conduct an ecological survey of their property. A CSA leader with over 900 sharholders in NYC, Columbia, Albany, Westchester counties, Roxbury practices organic, sustainable, biodynamic farming. Cataloging the rare plants, animals, and landscape types (noting invasives), within the bounds of their sizable acreage - They closed some good strategies & action steps. Applause... Although they should have had NY Heritage (shout) do an inventory, but alas, the very readable Pdf is here. A link to them off American Feast, and a sustainable development socioecon paper that uses the Roxbury CSA. Soils, Kills, Fens, & Hillocks…

Tachronic Parkway

2008-07-25T01:48:47Z

The second set of Tachronic photos, Americas most beautiful parkway. I will say it again, Northern Dutchess my Columbia.

From the oft-scanned hardcover delight, Man-Made America: Chaos or Control? Yale U Press, 1962. Other scanned spaces from the Transfer Archive.

A' Hu~

2008-07-25T01:35:47Z

So I was a little rude on Albany the other day, O’Albany, she has a few nuggets tucked in her rushes. Two doorways I reckon. Found these birds on the same damn twig – now that urban-renewal buckshot didn’t clean the tree entirely. The crust is still thin, fruit a lil’ too tangy, but these two are Delish!.

Staats House

2008-07-17T01:56:17Z

just so happens the house, c1656, and a significant acreage of prime wet lands can be yours for 2.4m. surrounded by DEC land. the deed allows 5 parcels, I quote, 'a fine subdivision.' oxymoron asshole. how did that get past the conservancy lawyers.

More Farm Data

2008-07-16T23:49:12Z

Shaker Mill last summer

“The number of farms nationwide declined by 1% between 1987 and 1997, while the land in farms declined by 4.3%. During the same period, Columbia County saw an 18% decrease in the number of farms and a 14% decrease in the amount of acreage being farmed.” ... "Between 1999 and 2005, Columbia County lost 85 of its 560 farms along with 2,500 acres of farmland." ... "Median size farm in the Hudson Valley is 87 acres."

Interesting report on Land Trusts and Agricultural Land (pdf) from the Glynwood Center.

Columbia Hudson Partnership announces their commitment, in a press release, to shepherd empire zone monies into strengthening Columbia Counties agbiz. Lets us live in hope.

A lovely Soil Protection write up from Little Seed Gardens, and Here. An organic 97-acre farm family farm in Chatam New York.

Roxbury Farm, July 14 Newsletter.

Boot Scrapin in the Shadows of Charleston

2008-07-16T03:07:24Z

The last photos I took with my Leica before I lost it the next day, deep in the beltway, Jan 08. I just got an old old digi sent out from Florida. Following this post the old bastard I used to document much of the Anti-Sit will be getting some face time.

Sky Farms

2008-07-15T14:35:26Z

The Times revisits the idea of "tower farms", a very New York version of allotments. One insight, from the chair of the Lincoln Institute, came shining thru, “Would a tomato in lower Manhattan be able to outbid an investment banker for space in a high-rise? My bet is that the investment banker will pay more.” Never the less, it makes for some great renderings, of impossible dreams. London's famous allotment program has been suffering wildly under the pressures of development, the city documents from which the below image was lifted.

These types of proposals have a certain history within the imagination of architecture & planning, much like the helicopter commute, wildly exciting and amazingly rendered, but hopelessly unhinged from the economic realities of land-use patterns. Don't get me wrong, I'm more than excited at the idea of moving food production & consumption within blocks of each other, but the decimation of even hi-functioning manufacturing (garment district) from the city core demonstrates how that principle does not translate when folks are willing to shell out $8,000/sqft for a condo. Again, the chair of the Lincoln Institute, "“There’s embodied energy in the concrete and steel and in construction,” which off-sets much of the carbon reduction. May I draw us back into more regionally appropriate solutions, whereas opportunities for transport (Hudson River), production (Dutchess/Columbia) and distribution (5boros) are already established, if even the smallest amount of leadership would make a committed effort to address food distribution patterns and their relationship to 'greening a city' we would be having a conversation that would engage reality, and make changes in the near-term. I'm not waiting for the Jetsons, because if we do, we'll be living like the Flinstones before long.