Radio Chatskill

For more than 45 years, the Catskill Exotic Bird Club has brought together bird lovers across the Catskills. But as more bird species face the threat of extinction in recent decades, the club’s mission has evolved.

Radio Catskill’s Kimberly Izar spoke to Richie Chiger, President of the Catskill Exotic Bird Club, about the organization and brings us this audio postcard.

The Delaware Highlands Conservancy is inviting the community to learn more about pollinators and their crucial role in the ecosystem at its upcoming event, Pollinator Pathway: Bee On It, on Saturday, August 23, at the Van Scott Nature Reserve in Beach Lake, PA.

Rachel Morrow, education and volunteer coordinator for the Conservancy, explained her role and the organization’s mission:

The Conservancy serves four counties across the Upper Delaware River region: Delaware and Sullivan in New York, and Pike and Wayne in Pennsylvania. “In those four counties and a couple outliers but mostly those four counties we have helped conserve over 19,000 acres of land,” Morrow noted.

Featured Speaker on Pollinators

The August 23 event will feature Louise Washer, a Conservancy board member and founding member of the Pollinator Pathway initiative.

The event will begin with a lecture on pollinator decline and species such as bees and butterflies, followed by a guided walk through the Conservancy’s meadowlands. Participants will search for monarch butterfly caterpillars on the milkweed plants at the Van Scott Nature Reserve.

Why Pollinators Matter

Pollinators are essential to both natural ecosystems and agriculture, Morrow emphasized.

She described pollinators as a “keystone species,” meaning their loss would cause ripple effects across the food chain.

Why Van Scott Nature Reserve?

The event will take place at the Conservancy’s 144-acre Van Scott Nature Reserve, which was donated by the Van Scott family in 2020.

Event Details

The Pollinator Pathway: Bee On It program begins at the Conservancy’s main office at the Van Scott Nature Reserve on August 23. Registration is available online at delawarehighlands.org.

Morrow offered this advice for attendees:

MONTICELLO, NY – August 18, 2025 — Sullivan County will mark International Overdose Awareness Day with its fifth annual vigil on Tuesday, August 26, at 6 p.m. on the courthouse lawn in Monticello. The event will honor lives lost, support grieving families, and connect the community with recovery resources.

More Resources Than Ever

“This year there are 31 tabling organizations, all having to do with recovery, support for those affected by substance use as well as their families,” said Camille O’Brien, Crisis Services Coordinator for the Sullivan County Department of Community Services and a member of the International Overdose Awareness Committee. “It’s more tabling organizations than we’ve ever had.”

The evening will include:

• Bagpipes and candlelight vigil
• Purple lights illuminating the courthouse
• Ribbons tied around a tree for those lost, struggling, or in recovery
• A live interactive mural by Joshua Noah, who will also share his story of recovery

Fighting Stigma

O’Brien said one of the most important roles of the event is reducing stigma.

She added that lowering stigma has helped more people seek help. “If people hear that others actually care about them, they sometimes will start to care about themselves and want a better life for themselves,” she said.

A Personal Mission

For O’Brien, who is herself in recovery, the day is deeply personal.

She also noted the importance of remembering those who didn’t survive. “I’ve heard this said in the rooms before: I’m lucky to have this seat here because somebody else didn’t make it. We need to remember that.”

Event Details

The vigil will run from 6–9 p.m. on the Sullivan County Courthouse lawn in Monticello. Resource tables will be open from 6 to 7 p.m., followed by a ceremony at dusk featuring speakers, music, and candle lighting.

For more information, contact Sullivan County Community Services or visit sullivan180.org.

As we approach the middle of August, pretty soon the Northeastern region of the United States will be feeling the layover effects of hurricane season. We’ve already had major rains this summer and while it may feel hot now, the rains will increase the likelihood of flooding in downstate New York.

Local officials, fire safety, and water rescue are already working to prepare for these heavy rains. Do you know what to do when you get that alert on your phone or social media?

Radio Catskill’s Genevieve Hartnett listened in to the Sullivan County Legislative Meeting last month and spoke with John Hauschild Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety and Fire Coordinator for Sullivan County and Chief Nate Routledge of the Roscoe Rockland Fire Department about how alerts are actually given out, understanding the environmental causes of floods, and how we can all be better educated on how to handle them.

New York State Senator Chuck Schumer visited Sullivan County yesterday to announce a new bill aimed at reversing President Trump’s Medicaid cuts. Schumer stood side by side with local lawmakers Assemblymember Paula Kay and Sullivan County Legislature Chair Nadia Rajsz along with community leaders.

Lawmakers estimate that 1.5 million New Yorkers could lose healthcare coverage when the law is enacted. But for rural areas like Sullivan County – where there are fewer hospitals and a larger percentage of residents on Medicaid compared to urban areas – the cuts could be a make or break moment. Radio Catskill’s Kimberly Izar brings us this report.

One of the region’s most anticipated events — the Grahamsville Little World’s Fair — returns August 15–17, bringing with it a showcase of 4-H exhibits, livestock competitions, artisan markets, and the highly anticipated agricultural product auction.

The Grahamsville Little World’s Fair, one of the oldest country fairs in New York, has been a cherished tradition for generations. For members of the Small Town Country 4-H Club in Hortonville, the fair is the culmination of a year’s worth of work raising animals, creating handmade goods, and preparing projects for public display.

Livestock and Auction Highlights

Among the standout events is the 4-H Livestock and Agricultural Product Auction, taking place Sunday, August 17 at 1 p.m. in the Upper Ring. This auction features everything from market lambs and turkeys to honey, eggs, and fresh farm products.

Club member Maylie Phelps is entering a market lamb along with honey and eggs from her family’s farm, established in 1932. “The judges look at the structure of the animal, the weight, and how well it’s trained for showing,” she explained. “For eggs, size and shape matter, and the color depends on the breed of chicken.”

Fellow member Alice Furber is entering a trio of turkeys — one male and two females — along with a pig. “For turkeys and pigs, the judges look at size, weight, and body structure,” Furber said, noting she has earned several first-place ribbons in past competitions.

Artisan Market and Youth Projects

Beyond livestock, the fair’s Artisan Market will feature still exhibits showcasing months of creative work by local youth. Visitors can expect to see jewelry, paintings, pottery, woodworking, and other handmade crafts.

“Some of our members are selling their creations,” said Furber. “They’ve worked so hard, and it’s exciting to see people buy and appreciate them.”

Supporting the Next Generation of Farmers

Phelps emphasized the importance of community support during the auction. “Every bid you place goes directly back to the youth,” she said. “Eighty-five percent of the funds go to the kids to fund future projects and help reach college goals. The remaining 15 percent supports a scholarship fund for all 4-H members.”

The Grahamsville Little World’s Fair runs Friday, August 15 through Sunday, August 17 at the fairgrounds in Grahamsville, Sullivan County. The fair offers rides, games, agricultural exhibits, live entertainment, and a chance to connect with the region’s farming heritage.

For more information, visit the Small Town Country 4-H Club’s Facebook page or the Grahamsville Little World’s Fair website.

Artist Bette Blau is bringing a deeply personal and richly textured body of work to Hall Space in Eldred with her new exhibit, From Where I Stand. The opening reception takes place this Saturday from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m., and the show runs through September 7.

“In the last seven years I’ve been met with lots of challenges, as many of us have, and I’ve come to really understand… perspective,” Blau explained. “Circumstances change and continue to change… nothing is stagnant… So, From Where I Stand is really about right now, from where I stand, this is where I am.”

Blau creates layered collages from vintage paper, ephemera, and natural textures, transforming found materials into what she calls “landscapes and charts that invite you to look closer and see what lies beneath.”

“I love to flea market and estate sale,” she said. “I love plain paper. I love paper with writing. I love envelopes that have different colors inside. Some of my collages are completely made from old envelopes… as you peel away the paper, things are left behind and you don’t always know what’s going to be there. I love that kind of exploration.”

Her process is intuitive. “I start really by building… I just kind of start to layer and layer and I try not to get too attached with what I’m seeing. A lot of times I’ll paint a layer over that… and start to see how the color of the paint is coming through the paper. Most times I don’t know the direction of my piece.”

Blau’s background as a set decorator influences her visual style. “It was almost like painting with objects,” she recalled. “The bottle that I chose was very painterly to me next to the textured surface next to the napkin… that’s kind of how it manifested itself.”

When it comes to what she hopes audiences take away, Blau is open-ended. “Looking at art is so personal, just like the making of art is so personal. I want people to interpret from their personal experiences… I do feel that there’s a very calming element to the collages and I hope that they feel that.”

One standout piece in the exhibit is Hoan, created during a stay in Hoan, Vietnam. “We were fortunate enough to be at an Airbnb… that were organic herb gardens. Every day the gardeners… came out to care for their land and there was a scent in the air that was sweet and there was a calm over the entire thing. I made that collage when I was there sitting outside… and that evoked a lot of beautiful memories for me.”

Blau says the exhibit marks a turning point in her creative and personal life. “This has been a very healing year for me… personally this has been a good run for me.”

More information about the exhibit is at hallspaceny.com. Details on Blau’s work are at betteblau.com.

Rising food and housing costs, paired with federal funding cuts, are hitting home. Sullivan Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Community Cupboard reported that emergency calls for food aid have increased 100 percent in the past three months.

The Community Cupboard currently delivers to about 700 people each week, including running a 7-days-a-week emergency delivery operation. But with food insecurity on the rise, federal USDA cuts, and proposed Medicaid and SNAP cuts looming –  the organization has reached its capacity limit.

Radio Catskill’s Kimberly Izar joined the Sullivan Fresh Cupboard team – who provide sustainable food and service support to hyper-rural communities and food deserts – on their morning route to chat with the team about how they’re navigating an uncertain future.

Our resident science guy Joe Johnson has a fascinating update on three very different science stories: the subtle changes in Earth’s rotation, a rare meteorite impact in Georgia, and the resurgence of the screwworm fly in Central America and Mexico.

Earth’s Rotation: Less Than 2 Milliseconds Matter

Last week, Radio Catskill explored the changing rate of the Earth’s rotation and the tiny variations in day length. “And we're totally talking like less than 2 milliseconds here. We're not talking a big deal,” Joe clarified. 

He also corrected a misstatement from the previous report: “I made a mistake. I used the term sidereal day when I was really talking about a solar day. And there's a difference between them.”

He explained: “A sidereal day is the Earth's rotation as determined by measuring the position of a distant star or radio source. And that's 23 hours 56 minutes and 4 seconds. A solar day is from local noon when the sun hits the highest point in the southern sky to the next solar noon. And that's exactly 24 hours or 86,400 seconds.”

The difference arises because “the Earth moves in its orbit about 1° per day. And so to get the sun back into that exact position, we have to then go another… 56 seconds or something like that. And so it's the change in position of the Earth that causes the two measurements to be slightly different from each other.”

Joe illustrated the concept with a hands-on experiment: “I told Tim he should do the spinny chair experiment where you spin around on a chair with your legs and arms out and then draw them in and you go a lot faster. It kind of illustrates how a change in mass can change rotation.”

Rare Meteorite Strikes a Georgia Home

In North Georgia near Atlanta, a rare daytime fireball from June 26 was seen and heard by hundreds, leaving a sonic boom captured on dashcams and security cameras. “The next day it was reported that a meteorite fragment had actually struck a house in a little town called McDunna, Georgia in a place called Henry County and it actually made a hole the size of a golf ball in a residential roof. It was estimated to be moving about a kilometer per second and that's about a little over 2,200 miles per hour when it hit this guy's roof.”

The meteorite passed through the ceiling, creating a 2- to 3-inch-wide crater in the living room floor. “The homeowner said it sounded like a gunshot, like a loud gunshot.”

Approximately 50 grams of the meteorite were recovered, with 23 grams donated to the University of Georgia Geology Department for study. Researchers identified it as an elchondrite, a low-metal-content stony meteorite likely originating from the asteroid belt. “It's basically a leftover from the formation of the solar system… about 20 million years older than the Earth.”

The meteorite has been dubbed the McDonagh meteorite, though the name must still be approved by the Meteoritical Society. Joe noted, “Most meteorites are not seen by people because about 3/4 of them fall in the ocean and most of the time they burn up before they hit the surface.”

Screwworm Flies Make a Return

The final story covers a troubling agricultural threat: the new world screwworm fly, which infects livestock by laying eggs in open wounds. “The larva actually look like wood screws. That's why they're called the screwworm fly… it could cause sickness, weight loss and can even be fatal.”

Although previously eradicated from the U.S. through the sterile insect technique—raising millions of flies, sterilizing them with gamma radiation, and releasing sterile males to prevent reproduction—the flies have resurfaced. “In 2022 this gap was breached… in 2023, they were in Costa Rica, 2024, they were in Nicaragua and Honduras. And now they're in Mexico. Mexico, Southern Mexico has had 2,700 cases and… 25 human cases too.”

The U.S. government, in cooperation with Latin American countries, is responding by expanding sterile fly releases, developing new traps, and improving cattle inspection protocols. “New fly rearing factories are being built… Uruguay is even looking into gene editing to see if they can introduce a gene that would make them infertile.”

With a $15 billion cattle industry in Texas alone, officials are taking the threat seriously. “Don't mess with that,” Joe remarked.

In the Catskills town of Neversink, the dream of ski slopes faded decades ago when alcohol bans kept developers at bay. 

That twist of fate laid the groundwork for something far more lasting. 

Today, the Blue Hill property's forested watershed is now protected through a deal by Open Space Institute. OSI's landmark acquisition of 3,100 acres strengthens watershed integrity, advances New York’s 30x30 climate goals, and secures the ecological legacy of this region. 

In the latest episode of Kaatscast, the Catskills Podcast, Host/producer Brett Barry talks to OSI's Charlie Burgess (OSI’s Northern NY Stewardship Manager) and Tom Gravel (OSI's Northeast Project Manager). They explore the decades-long journey from speculation to stewardship—and what this land means for clean water, climate resilience, and the future of public access.