CAIRO — In 2008, a whole lot genuflected on the altar of the fabled ginseng root on the seventh annual Catskill Mountain Ginseng and Medicinal Herb Pageant on the Historic Catskill Level. Herb fanatics, inquisitive minds and ginseng true believers attended the pageant that featured 5 visitor lecturers and 23 distributors.
The pageant sprang from the fertile thoughts of Bob Beyfuss.
“This yr was actual good,” Beyfuss stated of the occasion Oct. 11, 2008. “I’m glad. It was a pleasant, peaceable, quiet pageant. The distributors have been glad, audio system have been glad. We’re happy.”
His juxtaposition of optimism, courtliness and documentation made Beyfuss part of the pure world he noticed and on which he reported for many years.
Beyfuss wrote the Gardening Suggestions column for The Each day Mail and, later, for the Register-Star, beneath the Columbia-Greene Media firm emblem, for practically 30 years. He died Jan. 12 when he collapsed on the sector whereas enjoying a pickup baseball recreation with buddies in Florida. Efforts to revive him failed. Beyfuss was 72.
Many readers believed Beyfuss was from Greene County, so related have been the subjects he wrote about, however he truly lived in Schoharie County, and spent winters in Florida. Beyfuss wrote his columns there and emailed them to the newspapers.
“I do know he would need us to recollect him because the loving man he was,” his buddy, Tony Melluzzo, wrote in an electronic mail.
Beyfuss was a long-time member of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Greene County employees and a gifted environmental educator, however it was his information of ginseng that made him a famend worldwide knowledgeable within the myths, legends and healing powers of the foundation.
“Sadly, we realized on Thursday that our pricey buddy and colleague, Bob Beyfuss, handed away immediately in Florida,” Cornell Cooperative Extension stated in a press release. “For individuals who weren’t lucky sufficient have recognized Bob, he was a long-tenured member of the CCE Greene employees, nationally famend ginseng specialist, a gifted educator and a lot extra to us personally and professionally. With out Bob, there can be no Agroforestry Useful resource Middle at present in Acra. Bob was a employees member of the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Greene County from 1997 by means of 2009. These of us who have been privileged to name him a buddy are heartbroken.”
Beyfuss was born March 15, 1950. He obtained a grasp’s diploma in agriculture from Cornell College in 1986, and retired from Cornell Cooperative Extension of Greene County in 2009. He’s survived by his youngsters and grandchildren.
In his column printed within the Jan. 14-15, 2023, editions, Beyfuss wrote in regards to the perks of life as a “snowbird” — a denizen of Florida’s Gulf Coast — and the chance to pattern attention-grabbing, regionally grown tropical fruit.
“A number of days in the past, I ate a ripe Black Sapote fruit,” he wrote. “This fruit is carefully associated to persimmon and appears a bit like a big persimmon. It’s in regards to the measurement of a small orange, with a squat, pumpkin form. The very skinny pores and skin is pale inexperienced when not ripe, darker inexperienced with brown to black speckles, when totally ripe. The event of the fruit course of takes months, even right here on this lengthy rising season area.”
Nonetheless on trip, Beyfuss took care to convey the pleasure of consuming a backyard delicacy with nuance, element and pure financial system of phrases. His work let readers get immersed within the goals of gardening and gave them an opportunity to savor the fruit, too.