Kaatscast: the Catskills Podcast

What did Beethoven's piano actually sound like? At the Catskill Mountain Foundation's Piano Performance Museum in Hunter, New York, you don't have to wonder — you can sit down and play one.Brett Barry visits the museum at the Doctorow Center for the Arts with performing arts director Pam Weisberg and docent Stacey Bowers, who guide him through dozens of historic instruments spanning three centuries — from a mid-18th century French harpsichord to a nine-foot Baldwin concert grand that once traveled with Liberace.Along the way: the difference between a harpsichord's pluck and a piano's strike, why Beethoven's piano had four strings per key, the short life of the American square piano, and what it means to let the instrument tell you what it can do.The museum is open Saturdays 11 a.m.–3 p.m.; group tours available by arrangement. For performances, schedules, and more: catskillmtn.org/piano-performance-museum

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

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.

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 [email protected].

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!