Kaatscast: the Catskills Podcast

Silver Hollow Audio
  • 4.9 (55)
  • Places & Travel
  • Updated Biweekly

Kaatscast: the Catskills Podcast is a biweekly series featuring Catskills culture, history, sustainability, local interviews, literature, and the arts. Shows are hosted by Brett Barry and produced by Silver Hollow Audio, in the heart of the Catskills. Subscribe and experience what reviewers have called “delightfully informative” storytelling with “great production quality.” Voted “Best Regional Podcast” three years in a row. Episode archives, transcripts, and a robust search engine at kaatscast.com. Enjoy!

  1. Little Spaghetti Noodles: The Secret Life of the American Eel

    Jun 2

    Little Spaghetti Noodles: The Secret Life of the American Eel

    Every spring, something remarkable happens in the tidal waters of Black Creek in Esopus, New York: tiny, translucent eels — just an inch and a half long and barely the weight of a postage stamp — swim in from the Atlantic Ocean, following a journey that began in the Sargasso Sea nearly a year before. In this episode, guest host Sierra DeVito joins the Hudson River Eel Project at Black Creek Preserve, where Professor Susan Hereth of SUNY New Paltz leads a team of college and high school students in weekly data collection on the American eel — one of nature's most elusive and mysterious creatures. No one has ever witnessed eels spawning. No one knows exactly what draws them to the Hudson, or to Black Creek specifically. And yet, year after year, they return. We wade in with the crew as they haul the fyke net, count and weigh glass eels, record field data, and release the eels upstream. We also hear from students about what it means to do real science in the real world — and why it matters. In this episode: The remarkable (and still poorly understood) life cycle of the American eel, from the Sargasso Sea to the Catskill tributariesHow community scientists collect data that feeds into long-term fisheries researchThe black market for glass eels — and why a single eel can be worth serious moneyWhy getting students into the muck may be the best environmental education of allFor more information or to inquire about volunteering with the Hudson River Eel Project, visit the NYS DEC website — https://dec.ny.gov/nature/waterbodies/oceans-estuaries/hudson-river-estuary-program/community-science-volunteer-opportunities

    23 min
  2. Heather Houskeeper, the Botanical Hiker: Plants, Trails, and Belonging

    May 19

    Heather Houskeeper, the Botanical Hiker: Plants, Trails, and Belonging

    Kaatscast walks a stretch of the Finger Lakes Trail in Delaware Wild Forest with Heather Houskeeper — herbalist, long-distance hiker, author, and founder of the School of Plant and Place Connection — to talk about foraging, plant medicine, and what it means to truly belong in a landscape. Along the trail, Heather identifies edible and medicinal plants including garlic mustard, jewelweed, and dandelion, and explains how to approach foraging safely, ethically, and with a spirit of reciprocity. She also shares how a post-thru-hike sense of helplessness in the woods sent her to herbal medicine school, how she built a career around botanical hiking, and why she believes our innate knowledge of the plant world isn't quite lost — maybe just dormant. Find Heather at thebotanicalhiker.com and schoolofplantandplaceconnection.com.

    33 min
  3. Extra Edition: Kaaterskill Clove at a Crossroads

    May 12

    Extra Edition: Kaaterskill Clove at a Crossroads

    The Catskill Park's most visited corridor — Kaaterskill Falls and the Kaaterskill Clove area along Route 23A — may be heading for a major management overhaul. In this extra edition, host Brett Barry sits down with Jeff Senterman, Executive Director of the Catskill Center, to dig into a newly released Visitor Use Management report that recommends capping daily visitors at 1,000, implementing timed entry and advance reservations, and evaluating a public shuttle service to replace the recently shuttered private one. Senterman welcomes the framework while pushing back on its most restrictive proposals, arguing that limiting public access to the forest preserve should be a last resort — not a first response. He also reflects on what the report misses: the history of the place, the unresolved dangers of pedestrian and car traffic along 23A, and the years of groundwork that preceded this process. The public comment period closes June 1st. To read the report, search "Kaaterskill Falls Visitor Use Management" at dec.ny.gov. NYSDEC is accepting public feedback on the report through June 1, 2026 at ForestPreserve@dec.ny.gov.

    25 min
  4. Going With the Flow: Dany Davis, Catskill Streams, and the Long Way Home

    May 5

    Going With the Flow: Dany Davis, Catskill Streams, and the Long Way Home

    After nearly 30 years wading Catskill streams, Dany Davis has learned that rivers don't just carry water — they carry time, memory, and if you're paying close enough attention, a few life lessons too. Now retiring as Stream Studies Coordinator for the NYC Department of Environmental Protection, Dany is heading home to Alaska, and he sat down with us to reflect on what the streams gave back. On the banks of Warner Creek in Chichester, the conversation turns to geology, glaciers, and the surprisingly personal lessons a river can teach you. We trace the story of the Catskills from ancient Devonian forests to the last ice age to today's turbidity monitoring network. Dany also reflects on a life shaped by curiosity, transition, and the concept of connectivity that runs through both rivers and human community. In this episode: How streams literally carved the Catskill MountainsThe 380-million-year-old river sand beneath your feetWhy Stony Clove Creek became the focus of New York City's water quality researchWhat turbidity has to do with glacial legacy sedimentDany's personal journey through gender transition — and finding equilibriumWhat yellow birch trees mean to a retiring geologistThe "Rondout to Resurrection" road trip through seven river basins on the way home to AlaskaWant to dial in to your own neighborhood stream? Head over to the USGS Water Dashboard for real time data!

    48 min
  5. Pine Hill Community Center: 25 Years of Showing Up for Each Other

    Apr 21

    Pine Hill Community Center: 25 Years of Showing Up for Each Other

    For a hamlet of just a few hundred people, Pine Hill punches well above its weight. This week, Brett Barry visits the Pine Hill Community Center to mark its 25th anniversary — and to find out what it actually takes to keep a place like this alive. The center's origin story is equal parts heartbreak and generosity. In 2000, a tragedy in the community prompted founders Florence and Bernie Hamling to transform Bernie's research and development space into somewhere people could simply come together. Twenty-five years later, it offers pottery classes, concerts, art exhibitions, a wellness program, a farmers market, a thrift shop, youth programs, and a weekly social circle — all out of a former eyeglass factory that was once a gas station. Director Colleen McMurray, who joined during the pandemic amid an ongoing renovation, walks us through the building and breaks down how the center sustains itself: a mix of private donations, grant funding (including a state grant secured in 2023), and a remarkably productive thrift shop managed by volunteer Berns Rothchild. Also featured: how the community itself has shaped nearly every program the center offers, what's coming next (a dementia social program, a second-floor expansion, and an elevator), and why Florence thinks other small towns struggle to replicate what Pine Hill has built. More info and program schedules: pinehillcommunitycenter.org Recorded by production intern Sierra DeVito. Transcripts by Jerome Kazlauskas. Kaatscast is a production of Silver Hollow Audio.

    23 min
  6. Rooted in the Forest: Anna Plattner and Justin Wexler of Wild Hudson Valley

    Apr 7

    Rooted in the Forest: Anna Plattner and Justin Wexler of Wild Hudson Valley

    Brett Barry visits Anna Plattner and Justin Wexler at their 95-acre forest farm in Cairo, New York, home base of Wild Hudson Valley — an educational organization dedicated to inspiring learning and building connection through shared experiences in nature, history, and wild foods. Justin and Anna trace the origins of Wild Hudson Valley back to 2013, when Justin, freshly burned out from a master's in teaching at Bard College, found his way back to the woods and a fledgling idea for an environmental education business. A serendipitous encounter at a master naturalist training program brought Anna into the picture, and the two have been growing Wild Hudson Valley together — personally and professionally — ever since. In 2021, they took the leap to pursue it full-time, greatly expanding their offerings to include eco camping, foraging workshops, and the Wild Harvest Box, a monthly subscription of wild-harvested ingredients for adventurous home cooks. The conversation covers a rich range of topics: the history and cultivation of American ginseng (the plant that first brought them together), the ecology of forest farming and why it requires so much more than just planting things and walking away, the role of invasive species and deer in disrupting native plant communities, and the concept of ecoliteracy — the ability to truly read a landscape. We also draw some fascinating connections between the work of 18th-century botanist John Bartram and what Wild Hudson Valley does today, from "boxes" of natural specimens to a deep respect for indigenous plant knowledge. Brett, Justin, and Anna also dig into some of the surprising edibles hiding in plain sight — stinging nettles more nutritious than spinach, common milkweed with more uses than most people imagine, and sumac cones their kids lick like lollipops. And they share the quiet but meaningful work of hosting Lenape and Mohican people on ancestral homeland visits to the Catskills and Hudson Valley — a practice rooted in gratitude and reciprocity.  For information about Wild Hudson Valley's eco camp, foraging workshops, the Wild Harvest Box, and property consultations, visit wildhudsonvalley.com. And to hear a fun podcast about the life of John Bartram, check out Nature Calls: Conversations from the Hudson Valley, episode 115: John Bartram.  Kaatscast is a production of Silver Hollow Audio. Find us at kaatscast.com and on Instagram @kaatscast. Production intern: Sierra DeVito. Transcriptionist: Jerome Kazlauskas.

    44 min
  7. The Last Mile: Saving Pine Hill's Wellington Hotel

    Mar 24

    The Last Mile: Saving Pine Hill's Wellington Hotel

    In this episode, host Brett Barry joins Jan Jaffe, board president of Wellington Blueberry LLC, outside the shuttered Wellington Hotel on Main Street in Pine Hill, New York — a 12,000-square-foot, 19th-century landmark and one of the few remaining intact Catskill hotels that survived the era's notorious fires. Jan shares the origin story of this ambitious community-driven project: how roughly 20 neighbors pooled resources in the fall of 2022 to purchase the long-vacant building. Their goal: rehabilitate the historic structure into 10 units of workforce housing (studios and one-bedrooms targeted at residents earning 60–80% of area median income) and a much-needed community grocery store. Four years in, Wellington Blueberry has made remarkable pre-construction progress — clearing 60 dumpsters of debris, completing environmental review, obtaining all necessary permits, securing a letter of intent from Bank of America for historic tax credits, and earning a 2025 designation from the National Trust for Historic Preservation as one of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places. Their developer and construction manager is RUPCO, the region's leading nonprofit housing developer, and their architects are Albany preservation firm Thaler Riley Wilson. But they're still at "the last mile" — approximately $1 million short of the full funding needed to break ground. Topics covered: What workforce housing means and who it's designed to helpHow historic tax credits work and why they matter for this projectThe "Dagwood sandwich" of layered funding sources (grants from Restore NY, Ulster County, anonymous donors, and more)What the community has already accomplished — including two volunteer clean-up events with 40 people eachPlans for a local grocery store serving both residents and visitorsHow prospective tenants will eventually apply via lotteryTo learn more or donate, visit pinehillwellington.com. Donations can currently be made through RUPCO's website.

    25 min
  8. Hoppy Quick: Carving Bears and Living at a Higher Frequency

    Mar 10

    Hoppy Quick: Carving Bears and Living at a Higher Frequency

    Hoppy Quick has been chainsaw carving bears in the Catskills since 1979 — but he'll tell you he's not an artist. He's a spiritual being who found himself through the bear. In this wide-ranging conversation, we visit Hoppy at his home in Samsonville — a converted 1951 school bus, a canvas teepee workshop, a crackling fire ring, and a horse named Ginny — and quickly discover that a conversation about whittling wood leads somewhere much deeper. We talk about his 47-year search for the perfect bear face, carving as meditation, and what it means to live in grace. Hoppy shares the story behind the Heart Tribe, his COVID-era community of tens of thousands, and reflects on ego, fear, the divine feminine, AI, and why he believes the path forward is exactly 16 inches — from your head to your heart. As the world seems to be straining at its seams, Hoppy emerges like a bear from the tree line — unexpected, unhurried, and offering a wise and grounding call to our higher selves.

    50 min
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4.9
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About

Kaatscast: the Catskills Podcast is a biweekly series featuring Catskills culture, history, sustainability, local interviews, literature, and the arts. Shows are hosted by Brett Barry and produced by Silver Hollow Audio, in the heart of the Catskills. Subscribe and experience what reviewers have called “delightfully informative” storytelling with “great production quality.” Voted “Best Regional Podcast” three years in a row. Episode archives, transcripts, and a robust search engine at kaatscast.com. Enjoy!

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