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Mid Hudson Times, Wednesday, August 31, 2016
New Windsor Community Day draws 30K visitors
By SHANTAL RILEY
[email protected]
A queen honeybee can lay 2,000 or more
eggs a day.
This little known fact was shared with
a group of children gathered around a
honeybee hive on display by Maybrook
Honey at New Windsor Community Day
on Saturday.
“You see those bees moving around?”
asked beekeeper Robert Reynolds,
pointing to several impatient bees milling
around the edges of a large honey comb.
“Those are forager bees. They’re moving
around like that because they want to go
out and forage.”
Honeybees forage for nectar, pollen,
propolis and water, Reynolds told the
children while they stared intensely at
the beehive.
The annual New Windsor Community
Day drew about 33,000 visitors this
weekend, making it the largest crowd
ever to attend the event since it started
seven years ago.
“I can hear you but I don’t understand
what you’re saying,” crooned singer
Ayanna Martine, strumming a guitar in
front of an audience seated on hay bales.
Staff from the New Windsor Cantonment
State Historic Site were dressed to the
nines as soldiers from the American
Revolutionary War. “The British captured
Potter Rachel Brown sells handmade pottery by Deep Earth Designs in New Paltz
New York City in 1776,” said New Windsor
Cantonment
Superintendent
Mike
McGurty, dressed as a Continental Army
Quincy Jones, 6, inspects a beehive on display by Maybrook Honey.
officer. “Americans fell back into the
mountains. Here we are.”
Sylvana Durante watched her 4-yearold granddaughter Rihanna Bonneau ride
an old-fashioned merry-go-round. “It’s a
little hot,” she said. “But, she’s having a
good time.”
The day’s heat was nothing compared
to the temperature in an oven used to
create a glittering table of stoneware
by Deep Earth Designs Pottery of New
Paltz. “I fire it at about 320 degrees,”
said potter Rachel Brown. “Everything is
durable enough to use every day. I want
everything I make to be functional.”
Helicopter rides were new to the
event this year, said Pat Mullarkey,
who co-chairs the New Windsor Special
Events Committee with Sue Scheible.
When asked why she thought so many
people attended the town’s Community
Day this year, Mullarkey said, “You can
bring a lunch, stay all day and not spend
a penny.”
Mullarkey began New Windsor
Community Day with Sue Weygant in
2010. More than 200 vendors participated
in the event.
Xavier Mourino, 10, scales a climbing wall.
More photos on pages 20-21
Singer Ayanna Martine.