Last week, the I Love NY team published their first Fall Foliage Report of the year, which means the fall foliage season has officially begun here in New York.

If you've been following The Jiffy over the years, then you know this is a huge time for us. We break out the Leaf Watch Cam and point it at a single leaf during the entire season so that we can watch the changing of the leaves through the experience of a single leaf.

It’s wall-to-wall coverage, and of course I’ll break in with any updates and analysis as the hues change. And this year, the people voted: The Official Jiffy Leaf Watch Leaf for Leaf Watch 2025 is the Northern Red Oak!

Much of the northeast is in a drought, with some parts considered severe to extreme, so I’m interested to see how this year’s fall foliage season will differ from 2024 (which was a long one with the quaking aspen!).

I’m also working on a downloadable Leaf Watch Guide, with input from a member of New York’s network of 90 professional volunteer leaf spotters, so stay tuned for this.

When The Hungry Eye visited Chatham for the annual Summerfest to take a long look at the Great Chatham Bake-Off, I was intrigued by something beyond the gazebo: Why are there so many Chathams in Chatham?

There’s East Chatham, North Chatham, Chatham Center, the Village of Chatham, Old Chatham, and parts of the Village of Chatham that aren’t in the Town of Chatham but are in the Town of Ghent.

And since The Hungry Eye didn’t ask any questions about this for his podcast episode, I investigated the question myself.

In this episode, we visit Marton & Davis, a new boutique on Main Street, to hear from co-owner Melissa Davis about all the many changes soon to arrive to Chatham in the coming years.

Then I head over to the Chatham High School baseball and softball field to meet with Gregg Berninger, the municipal historian for the Town of Ghent, right on the borderlands of these two towns. If you hit a home run here, you really take a trip.

Jeanne Vaillette Bowerman, shopkeeper of Olde 1811 Antiques in the oldest building in the village, cohabitates with ghosts she can’t see (such as a protective spirit named Matthew), all the while seeing the ghosts of a Chatham that no longer exists.

Pete Toigo, a career jazz musician who lives in his childhood home that his mother sold to him for $1, tells me about growing up in Chatham and what may befall a small town should investments and interest move on to other places.

And Doug Welch, of the Chatham Dirt Road Coalition, shares with me why they want to preserve the town’s more than 50 miles of still-unpaved roads.

What started as a look at the many Chathams became a story about what it means to preserve a small-town culture in a time of change; what parts of that culture deserve preserving; and what it means to belong and be a part of a community that’s ever-evolving.

Walking down Bushnell, Doug and I saw a herd of cows grazing the hills behind a farmhouse’s private tennis court. Doug told me: “That is a perfect image. Yes, you're looking at gorgeous grazing cows over a brand new tennis — well, it's not brand new, it's been there for a long time, but it’s the tennis court, and the cows, and they get along fine.”

Maybe that’s the message to be learned from the Many Chathams. I hope you enjoy this profile of a town, a beautiful place with generous people and so many stories to learn.

I’m grateful to everyone who participated in this episode for their time and their stories. I’m also producing an audio exclusive for premium subscribers: We take a walk up to the historic clock tower with Stephen Piazza, Chatham’s time keeper, as he winds the clock and keeps it ticking. You can upgrade to get it when it’s published here.