The Jiffy: Stories From Upstate New York

Independence Day in America, the 250th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. I spent the morning riverside at Umpachene Falls with my friend Monique Tyndall. Moniqe (Lynx Clan [maternal], Citizen of the Stockbridge-Munsee Band...

While producing an upcoming series on agriculture, I'm sharing this special episode featuring local news and gossip from the Rough Notes newspaper of the 1800s, available through the New York State Newspapers Archive. I'll be back to normal programming...

While I produce the next batch of new episodes for the feed, I want to re-share a previous episode that's become a listener favorite. It's a trip to the ball field for the season-ender, double-header vintage base ball game between the Kingston Guards a...

This is part three of my three-part series on Frederic Church, on the life and legacies of Church, Thomas Cole, and the Hudson River School. Betsy Jacks spent 21 years as executive director of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site in Catskill, New Yor...

This is part two of my three-part series on Frederic Church, recorded on the grounds of Olana on the occasion of his 200th birthday. Victoria Johnson spent six years writing "Glorious Country: How The Artist Frederic Church Brought the World to America...

This year marks the 200th birthday of Frederic Church, the Hudson River School painter whose mountaintop home, Olana, helped shape how Americans imagined upstate New York. To kick off a three-part series for Frederic Church 200, James starts where Chur...

In this first episode of season two (!!) I'm taking an overdue look the concept of an "upstate" New York. What is it? Where is it? Can I go to it? And who is it for? We start at Ward's Point, the southernmost point in New York, and look northward, and ...

The podcast is still on a bit of a hiatus while I produce "Little Pod" ( https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/little-pod/id1872097328 ) (a limited series with Olivia Muenter). I'll be back with new episodes here soon, but in the meantime, I'm re-shari...

Mother Ann Lee is one of the most consequential (and least understood) figures in early American religious history. In just ten years in the colonies, during the chaos of the American Revolution, she helped give rise to a movement that would shape comm...

In the first episode of the New Year, we get as close to the concept of time as possible: by climbing into Chatham’s 1872 clock tower with village timekeeper Stephen Piazza. Here are some things we learned: It's very steep to the top and hard to do wit...

Send a text Dylan Tupper Rupert joins the show today in my first-ever feed drop to take us on a ride-along with her podcast "Music Person!" It's the first part in a three-part series for her show, dedicated to mapping out how the Hudson Valley’s histor...

Send a text While on a holiday break in December, I'm sharing this special episode featuring local news and gossip from the Rhinebeck Gazette of the 1800s, available through the Hudson River Valley Heritage Historical Newspapers Archive. I'll be back t...

Send a text What is the job of a County Clerk? In Ulster County, it can mean managing DMV processes, preserving 300-year-old land records, and keeping the legal paper trail of everyday life in order. But earlier this year, that job landed one local off...

Send a text Sometimes things get too stressful here at The Jiffy, a podcast about upstate New York that really takes you places. And when this happens, I lace up my hiking boots and guide you on a restful Sleep Hike, where I do the hiking, while you do...

Send a text It’s a brisk October afternoon in Kingston, New York, for the final game of the Vintage Base Ball 2025 season between the Kingston Guards and the Ulster Nine. We're at Herzog Field, beside the Catskill Mountain Railroad Station and the Hann...

Send a text It’s peak leaf peeping season, and I'm bringing this episode to you from The Leaf Watch Desk deep in the Woods of the James Cave Instagram Feed. This year’s official Leaf Watch Leaf, as voted by listeners, is the Northern Red Oak, and it’s ...

Send a text What does it mean to belong to a place? Standing in the famous gazebo at the intersection of multiple boundaries – the village of Chatham, the town of Chatham, and perhaps even the town of Ghent – this question feels especially important. T...

Send a text While on a holiday break at the Columbia County Fair, I'm sharing this special episode featuring local news stories from the Chatham Courier newspapers of the 1800s, available through the Hudson River Valley Heritage Historical Newspapers A...

Send a text I finally received my first Listener Question!!! (You can use the link in the show notes above to send in yours.) So when listener Murphy asked how to create "the ultimate Hudson Valley picnic before it's too late," I embarked on a journey ...

Send a text It’s a Jiffy Audio Postcard today from Rothermel Park in Kinderhook, where the Pinkster Festival – a powerful Black cultural celebration with Dutch colonial roots – was revived for the first time in more than 200 years. Pinkster began as a ...

Send a text I locked James out of the studio for this one. Because Ruth Reichl – my hero, my origin story, my reason for existing – came to Chatham, New York, to judge the Great Chatham Bake-Off. And I, The Hungry Eye, the anonymous food critic for the...

Send a text In this episode, I’m continuing our tour through The Jiffy-Mart – my online bodega and members’ lounge – and this time, we’re stepping through the forest refrigerator straight into the Catskill Mountains. I’m bringing back my series "Tree M...

Send a text In this episode, we tour the Jiffy-Mart, the official digital bodega of the James Cave Instagram Feed. Then we dive into a thoughtful exploration of land acknowledgments with Indigenous expert Heather Bruegl, who shares insights on creating...

Send a text It's Mud Season here, not just at The James Cave Instagram Feed, but across all of the northeast. And for this relaxing Sleep Hike, I thought it would be peaceful to take a restful walk through Mud Creek, in Hudson, New York. Mud Creek is a...

Send a text It’s spring in upstate New York, also known as Mud Season. In this episode, I go searching for the answers to its riddles: why Mud Season exists, what’s really happening down there in the ground, and why the ground breathes more heavily whe...