Catskills - Sullivan County - Ulster County Real Estate -- Catskill Farms Journal

Rachel called me up after the eblast went out and wanted to see some pics of the houses I'm selling (she's been up with her husband and child once or twice), so I thought I better post them. But first, up above, a word from our sponsor - Me and My Son, Lucas - who is just entering the real pudgy phase , - sorry Lucas for the shout out.

That's our new picket fence out front.

So here is the perfect country road we are now building on - we currently have 2 houses that are unspoken for.

Couple of deer high-tailin' it out of the way, mistaken me for some version of Bladerunner.

First, we have Cottage 19 - very pretty 5+ acres with 2 bedrooms, two porches, and a big open floor plan. Like a lot of these perfect country getaways, the houses feel quite large and airy even though they are under 1000 sq ft. I think it has something to do with the expansive outdoors, and porches, and the open floor plans. This picture below is a what it will look like when finished, although not really because we are using cedar shake shingles on the exterior and tricking it out here and there with original details.

Here's the actual house.

And a dreamy version of the interior, with barn doors, strap hinges, wide plank floors and wood

ceilings.

And a pic of the open interior just crying for someone to show it a little love. I expect this house to be finished in September. $245k.

And Cottage 17 is all framed up, electrified, plumbed and ready to insulate. 1300 sq ft, 2 bedrooms, and 8 acres. Audio, security, 2 full baths and a lovely lovely setting. Will sell for around $340,000. Will be ready around September.

Sure, - we're a little bit nuts, building spec homes without a buyer up here in the middle of nowhere during the great recession. But hey, what the heck - Life goes on.

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That's right - Early June means one thing to us event-starved residents - The Tractor Parade - a tour de force down the main street of Callicoon. Like a kid with Christmas, Lisa and her friend Amy wait impatiently from one year to the next.

This year Lil' Lucas participated. That's me in the red shirt and shades, looking too cool for school.

Amy and Adam and a big cabbed tractor in the background.

Lisa and Me and Adam and Amy

Big Sullivan County mountain man making his way down main street in his big rusty tractor.

Lisa has a crush on this one farmer/tractor drivin' man, and here he is. Funny thing is she probably picked the guy with the kindest face out of the whole 350 tractor gang - that's just the way she rolls.

So the tractor parade has been going on for maybe close to 9 years now and Lisa and Amy have taken in most, if not all of them. We've taken most of our family at least once and a whole lot of friends over the years.

That's me again outside the wine store.

Here's a picture of an 'aging hipster'. Not pretty. At least he's wearing underwear today.

Lucas and Duncan kickin' into high gear at Gavin and Emily's house that we finished and they moved into back in December 2008.

And this is a real sorry picture to end this blog - with Gavin and I forced into forced labor to build a garden for Lisa and Emily and not only did we build this kind of sad garden box, but our wheel barrow broke down several times and the topsoil and compost we used was over at David's house which really isn't that close once you load up a flimsy wheelbarrow with dirt.

Here is Gavin swearing at the wheelbarrow, while I'm doing my best inadvertent 'I'm effeminate' look for some reason - probably to try and get out of some manual labor.

So, there you have it. Another funky day in the life of us country bumpkins.

Oh yea, it's raining a lot for the past 4 weeks, and soon I'm going to jump off something high because after a long hard winter, I need some SUNSHINE. Give me some of that SUNSHINE. Lord knows I've earned some SUNSHINE!

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We're rocking and rolling, firing on all cylinders, pedal to the metal, letting the goose loose. About 6 weeks ago I bought 44 acres, and with the help of the recession, we have been jamming on all the building fronts. I mention 'with the help of the recession' because it is solely due to the fact that great subcontractors are looking for work, looking to please. As opposed to 2004-2007 when I was building the foundation of my business, when the best I could do was field a team of bad news bears, getting cheated over and over again by subs/employees who completely had me over a barrel - we built a good house since the inception of the business, but the amount of work and management it took to get it done with team I could afford was really beyond description. Presently - Cottage 17, building lot is cleared, foundation is in, slab is poured, and the house is framed.

It's a 2 bedroom, 2 bath, 1300 sq ft cottage on just about 9 acres outside of Barryville. This house not spoken for yet.

And the same thing over at Cottage 19 - a mini-house with just under 1000 sq ft on 5 very pretty acres.

It's going to be a very sharp house, with particular attention paid to the details.

And then we got Courtney and Bronson's house going up. 5+ acres, little stream running through, and a real nice piece of land that rises and falls. Also some nice stone walls.

And here is Richard and Nancy, who are planning to buy the Barryville Cottage, and they promise I can use their house in the rainforest mountains of Ecuadar.

And my main man Juan, one of the consistent bright lights over the last 7 years - Juan has worked for me since the beginning, leaving for just a few months in 2005, - he's returning to his family in Guatemala in October, after have been away for 9 years. He has two children he hasn't seen, he's earned enough money to build a small apartment complex, and return to his home with a financial cushion and a very good handle of english, which is an advantage anywhere.

Anytime I hire someone new, I always make them work with Juan for a few days and that tells us a few things about the new person - do they know how to work hard? and do they know what they are doing?

Just like a bad egg that takes long lunches and sneaks a joint when no one is looking can move a business in one direction, a hardworking ethos among the crew can make it very uncomfortable very quickly for those who don't desire to contribute evenly or honestly.

A butterfly I found.

And the Barryville Cottage.

And the old lonely road that leads to the houses we are building.

And Peter's gothic cabin -

And my addition at my house on Crawford Rd, Eldred.

It's late, I'm tired, and the baby, wife and Cat are upstairs. Played volleyball at Jill Wiener's farm tonight, outside of Callicoon Center. Joe and Viv from Global Home in Jeffersonville were there, Darren Wisemen from McKean Real estate, and a few other notables were present

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Interesting article in the NYTimes on Sunday about Blogs. I remember well all the hype surrounding this new form of discourse, dialogue and conversation. But as I searched for blogs over the years to regularly read, or browse, I saw a lot of the same thing, - that being outdated, hardly-posted blogs, abandoned and left hanging loosely in cyberspace, never properly bid goodbye, or saluted farewell. Now the Times comes out with some interesting stats - Only 7.3 million blogs out of 133 million have been updated in the last 120 days, meaning 95% of all blogs begun, lay wasted alongside the road of high hopes, and grander ambitions. And of the 7.3 m, only a fraction of those have been regularly tended to over the past half year. I think a lot of it has to do with difficulty to get comments going - where we were a little different was we never allowed comments, for fear of what was to be said, so we never used that as a measuring stick. We've been writing for over 20 months, and have accumulated over 200 different posts. But finding something to say, remotely interesting, is definitely a challenge, and I think we all here at the Catskill Farms blog benefit from a sort of renewal every couple of months, with new houses, new talented customers, and new construction projects. And that type of enthusiasm, simply measured by the ability to find something interesting and new about our journey every few day - can't be faked or accomplished without real passion. And that's what separates us from the pack - our passion for the idea of simple country living, restrained but fine design, and our military precision that we attack our goals on a day after day basis.