Kaatscast: the Catskills Podcast

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.

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.

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 con

Singer‑songwriter Steve Koester, the creative force behind Two Dark Birds, joins Brett in the Kaatscast studio for a deep, generous conversation about songwriting, place, and the long arc of making music in the Catskills. With the band’s fifth studio albu

In this episode, we visit Pogliani Select, purveyors of artisanal, estate‑grown olive oils and aged balsamic vinegars sourced directly from small family farms across Italy and Croatia. From the hills of Tuscany and the groves along the Adriatic to a tasti