Fall home improvement 2016 composite esub

Home HudsonValley SEPT. 15, 2016

ULSTER PUBLISHING

WWW.HOMEHUDSONVALLEY.COM

Fall Home Improvement

Hunkering down for the seasons ahead

Moving deeper in to the woods or back into town: Which fits you best?

Tips for cars, plumbing, buying umbing, and buy ying new woodstoves es Renovating for your insurer’s benefit Finishing out those jobs you have started?

15, 2016 2 | Sept.

Home Hudson Valley

Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley

| 3

Moving up from Brooklyn? ery night!

Here’s what you must know about our lives here

T

he good news is there are no cockroaches in Ulster County. The bad news is the mice. You’re up against a long and arduous battle with rodents, unless you give up completely or adopt a cat. Each night you must scrupulously sponge the stove. Otherwise you’ll awaken to tiny cigar-shaped turds beside your burners.

My wife and I have evolved past have-a-heart traps, because we’d compassionately carry the trapped mice outside, release them, and watch them sneak back in the kitchen. So we bought old-fashioned murderous traps. Our long-tailed enemies grew smarter and stopped getting caught.

(Still, they manage to eat the peanut-butter bait.

By setting mousetraps, we’re feeding the mice!) As those who have followed American history in the last 40 years know, it’s very difficult to win against a disciplined guerrilla army.

By Sparrow

M

y roommate said to me last night: “I was just awakened by the wind.” I lived in Manhattan 35 years, and no wind ever woke me up. If you move to the Hudson Valley, you’ll be amazed how much moving air can sound like a massive battleship 300 feet high crashing into a mountain.

In fact, there are many surprises in the Catskills.

If you’re considering moving up here, read this article carefully — perhaps even twice!

For one thing, bring a sweater. The whole climatological system in Ulster County is like a massive air conditioner. I sleep under two blankets, two quilts, a heavy green curtain, a thick bedspread, plus an unzipped sleeping bag – and that’s in August!

You will never be disturbed by upstairs or downstairs neighbors, because you won’t have any. The closest humans will be about 50 feet away, and will be perfectly benign, except for playing a little heavy-metal music on a Saturday night – and even that you won’t hear from your bedroom.

Also, time is different here. Out in Western civilization, everyone complains that they “have no time.” Here, time is generous and abundant. A typical Tuesday evening is as interminable as your brother-in-law’s slideshow of his recent visit to Poland.

Here in Phoenicia, we have too much water and too much time – especially in winter, when the hours stretch endlessly in all directions, like the great icy plains of Antarctica. I suggest you stock your garage (or attic) with piles of books: Latin-American history, rock biographies, feminist mystery novels, opera librettos. And not just books. Also CDs, cassette tapes, DVDs. You’re going to need amusement, and it should be varied.

V

isual art is different in these parts.

What lower Manhattan calls “art” means nothing up here, and vice versa. A person who can paint a landscape with a red barn that nicely captures the afternoon light is considered an artist in Woodstock. Down in Chelsea, such people are derisively called “Sunday painters.”

City artists must study the history of neo-conceptualism before they attempt their first art installation. (No one paints in Brooklyn any more, except ironically.)

Even if you aren’t a menstruating woman, you will develop a very close relationship with the moon. Three nights out of the month, the moon is unimaginably lustrous, so bright it casts a shadow. On the other hand, for three nights out of the

I BECCA FRANK

The author and his wife, the writer Violet Snow, in all their gothic rural American glory. month the night is completely dark. You can get lost in your own back yard.

Warning: trees may begin speaking to you. It happened to me after six years here. Nowadays, a tree in my back yard offers me advice almost daily.

I asked her if she wished to speak for this article, and she said (to all of you), “Do everything slowfully.”

You will go years without seeing an airplane overhead, though occasionally a black helicopter will fly mysteriously low over your valley, which will plunge you into 20 minutes of anxiety about the NSA. Which reminds me – all of your new friends will be conspiracy theorists, and you’ll “learn” a lot about the Federal Reserve. Remember: whenever anyone says, “I’m doing a lot of research on the Internet,” it means they’re losing their mind.

Upstate radio is quite odd. During the day in Phoenicia, only one station comes in clearly: K104, hit radio for teenagers, from Poughkeepsie.

At night, however, tantalizing frequencies from distant cities suddenly appear: French news from Montréal, Cleveland Indians baseball games, 1930s radio serials rebroadcast from Toronto, WWVA from Wheeling, West Virginia (now entirely Christian), Chinese voices, Bloomberg Radio. Often the stations appear, flourish and dissolve into static within minutes. It’s like new outtakes from the Beatles’ “Revolution No. 9” ev-

n the city, one sometimes sees a celebrity.

In the mountains, one occasionally meets a bear.

Bears have essentially the same digestive system we do, which means they eat exactly the way you would if you’d never read a book on nutrition.

Their preferred diet is pizza, chicken nuggets, Snickers bars — and every day they go dumpsterdiving in Phoenicia, searching for these delicacies.

This has been a big bear season for me. My friend Mack and I went walking in Phoenicia Park one day, as a “teenage” bear cavorted nearby.

He stood on his hind legs, reaching up to a tree.

He lay on the ground, and he paced about. At one point — as we sat on a bench — he walked right towards us, either through aggression or myopia.

We didn’t flinch, and he drifted off to the right. A bear is a fine companion on a Wednesday afternoon, I learned.

The next week, the smallest, cutest bear I’ve ever seen bounded in front of my car near the Salamander Pond in Allaben. I’d heard that many cubs have been abandoned this year. This was one such orphan.

New York City gets impressive sunsets, due to the thickly toxic atmosphere of New Jersey, but in the Catskills a mountain stands between oneself and the setting sun, so all you see are vaguely pink patches above. But at night, the stars are close – closer than the ones on the ceiling of Grand Central Station. And dawn is glorious, with its chill air and voluminous dew. It’s like the birth of the world.

So move up to the Hudson Valley. But if possible do it slowfully.

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Home Hudson Valley

TIMBERLAND PROPERTIES

Dream homes come in all styles, and for many include a move deeper into the wilderness for peace and tranquility. The quality of local school districts and commute times to work play an equal role in where one ends up buying, too.

A second leap of faith Buying a home after that first one

By Lisa Carroll

T

he purchase of our first family home took a leap of faith for my husband Tom and I me. We had been living with our two young daughters, Shelby and Sammie, in my childhood home in order both to bring a sense of comfort to my mom when we lost my dad after a short but brutal illness and to save money for a down payment and all those other fees that come

with buying a home.

When Tom and I initially started the search we were under no delusions that the home we’d buy would be our “forever” home. We didn’t have the financing to narrow potential homes to that degree. Going into it, we needed the basics — affordability and safety for our family. Things like which school district the prospective house was in or if the lot was large enough just weren’t important then.

After looking at a dozen or so houses and have a number of offers fall through, we stumbled upon a corner-lot home in the Village of Ellenville. It matched all our criteria. It was affordable. The neighborhood was safe. To us, having lived out of a bedroom for over a year, the house seemed mas-

sive. For nearly five years, we’ve lived here. We’ve celebrated birthdays and holidays, births and deaths and first pets.

Along the way, we’ve done some work on our home. Not much, the budget is still pretty tight.

We’ve made improvements that work for our family, mostly lighting. Just last weekend, we tore out the carpet in the living room to expose the near-perfect original wood flooring beneath.

Talk about a score! It’s the original detailing of the home that spoke to us on our first initial visit” the arched doorway leading from the kitchen to the living room, the ornate circa-1930s brass-like door handles, the beautiful — and large — mantle over the fireplace beckoning candles and Christmas wreaths.

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Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley But for all its beauty, our house is just not big enough. We’ve talked about putting on an addition above the one-car garage, turning our two-bedroom home into a three-bedroom. We’ve discussed putting up a larger garage, too, but that’s just not feasible on our quarter-acre lot. Like the last owners of our home, we think the house is perfect. It just needs to be on a larger lot so an addition would be possible.

T

hat same weekend we went on our first visit with our real-estate agent. After doing copious research on this potential listing and a drive-by, Tom and I believed it met our nowlong list of must-haves. After the visit, however, we realized both that the listing didn’t meet our needs the way we thought and that our finances weren’t yet where we wanted them to be.

The home was old, just a few years younger than our current one, but still needed updating.

It wasn’t as much the updating of the kitchen or pink bathroom that made us nervous as the layout of the land. Much of the acreage was unusable — wetlands. Part of the criteria for our home search involved land. We are outdoors people. My husband likes to hunt, and the girls and I like to camp. One day, the girls and I would like to build a fairy fort in the woods, and add a dog to our family. Both require more space.

You understand. This time we’re going after our “forever” home. Our girls are getting older — six and four years old. We want them to be in a home that they will potentially graduate high school from and move out of.

Our list of must-haves has grown. We’re looking in a specific school district, for a home with a lot of acreage and room to grow. While not needing granite or stainless sinks, appliances or countertops, our kitchen has to be large enough to be the hub of our family. We also need space for our parents, if any of them choose to live with us later on in their lives. Our girls need a place they might want to move back to after leaving the nest. Our world is a different place than it was years ago.

Tom and I do— to the appreciation of our real-estate agent, I’m sure — much of the search legwork ourselves. We research listings online, check out the county’s tax-parcel information and do drive-bys. There is no point, Tom and I agree, in looking at a house if we can’t get up the driveway safely in the winter or if it’s surrounded by other homes.

When we see pictures of a potential new home online, we try to imagine ourselves there. What would it be like to cook breakfast in that kitchen?

Where would we put the Christmas tree? When Tom and I are old, will we be able to make it up a steep staircase?

There are other issues. Is the electric updated?

Are there mold issues? Will the taxes be lower, and if so, could we afford a higher mortgage?

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uying a second time is quite different from the first time. We had a safety net then if an offer fell through — a place to live already established. We also didn’t have the pressure, the necessity, of selling our first home to purchase the second. That is a level of difficulty and experience I know little about.

I’ve read some online about our particular situation, which isn’t much different than many others in our age bracket find themselves. I’ve found little advice offered beyond the importance of financing correctly and preparing for the long haul.

And then there’s the emotional aspect. As much as I yearn to see the girls in their treehouse or four-wheeling around my woods or maybe fishing from the pond I hope to have, saying goodbye to our first home will be hard. Imagining new homeowners talking and laughing in my kitchen, their children scooting on their butts down the staircase Christmas morning. While we search for our new home, I worry about the future of our current one. Will the next owners appreciate all those special things about my home, like the window seat at the stair landing where the girls like to sit and watch the squirrels. I hope so.

It’s going to take a second leap of faith for us to put our home, which we love but which doesn’t suit our current selves as much as it did our past selves, on the market and to purchase another.

There are no guarantees. We dream of our girls climbing a ladder into their treehouse, of that home office where I can shut out the world and write, of that two- or three-car garage Tom can tinker in all winter long.

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Home Hudson Valley

Moving deeper into the country Fixing this old house while dreaming of building new

By Lynne Crockett

Y

ears ago my husband Donald and I drove over Peekamoose Mountain through the winding streamside valley of Sundown, home of the nowfamous Blue Hole. I was struck by the beauty of the place. I even asked Donald where someone would work if she lived there.

The area was lovely but remote.

At this time we lived in Saugerties, on the Woodstock side of town. My parents bought a large parcel of land in 1987 for us all to build on. We cleared trees to construct a driveway that wound down a hill and through a swamp. Our property was a quarter-mile from the road, and my parents’ another quarter-mile from ours. We were secluded, in the midst of a forest with a stream. To visit my

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In 1989, the house that Donald had designed and built was sort of ready for us to inhabit when we moved in. The windows were covered with plastic, not glass. For a front door we used a piece of cardboard. The bathroom door was a sheet, a barrier not sufficient for the comfort

of some visitors.

But the living area was open and light, with large windows overlooking the woods and my many bird feeders. Through these windows I watched not only birds but also deer, turkeys, foxes, coyotes, and even a fisher. When I came home after work I felt that I had entered a new space, one separate from the human dra-

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What about bad contractors?

A

ll homeowners, not just those new to the area or those needing outside help for home improvements, want assurance that they won’t get scammed. Apart from hiring those who have been recommended by friends and neighbors, the best bet may be to note how those who scam tend to get caught in the Hudson Valley.

Last month, state attorney general Eric Schneiderman publicized an order issued by Dutchess County supreme court judge Peter Forman requiring home improvement contractor Daniel McInerney, doing business as D Mac Design & Development LLC., to pay $41,412.16 in restitution to four homeowners who were victims of his home improvement fraud, $15,000 in penalties and $2000 in costs. Why? Turns out McInerney received thousands of dollars in payments from would-be clients without providing the contracted services. Many of the jobs he performed ended up doing harm to the homes he was hired to fix, requiring more funds to repair what was done.

“When hardworking New Yorkers pay for home-improvement services, those services should be performed fully, professionally, and in a timely manner,” Schneiderman said in his August announcement.

“My office is committed to holding unscrupulous business owners accountable for taking advantage of New York consumers”.

Also this summer, the Ulster County district attorney’s iffice and Kingston Police Department announced the arrest of Thomas Carpino of Kingston on felony charges after complaints involving consumers paying for driveway paving work that was never done. Carpino ended up arraigned in Kingston city court and pit in jail in lieu of $20,000 bail or $40,000 bond. Final resolution of his case was still pending.

Be careful who you hire.

color Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley

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he house was originally designed as a three-car garage with an apartment above.

The garage was Donald’s workshop, and the upstairs, the space in which we lived, was intended as a showroom to sell custom cabinets. The house itself was to be built near a pond — an old bluestone mine that had filled in with water and was populated by spotted salamanders, newts and frogs.

The house never was built. Our septic system cost $25,000 instead of the $8000 we had budgeted. Perk tests showed mottling in the clay, so the health department required us to install a pump to move the waste to another piece of property that had passed the perk test. This involved digging trenches for the pipes — and a pump and an alarm system for when the pump failed. I learned that one needs patience and the ability to embrace the unexpected when building a home. Even with these setbacks Donald insisted that building new was less of a headache than renovating. I wasn’t convinced.

In time our apartment over the workshop expanded. Donald added a room over the deck for our bedroom, so we no longer climbed a ladder to a loft above the kitchen. Later he built a two-story post-and-beam addition with a master bedroom and bathroom. He completed the house when we were preparing to move — and it sold in two weeks. We had two potential buyers, and one even offered more money than we asked. The house was desirable partly because of its location but primarily because of its unique beauty. It was a work of art.

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kay, back to Sundown. In 2007 I was hired as a professor at SUNY Sullivan in Loch Sheldrake. My commute from Saugerties to Sullivan was 75 minutes one way, when the traffic and weather cooperated. Often, in spite of good audio books, I found myself dozing off during the trip home. We realized we needed a location closer to the college.

We spent two years searching for property. Although Sullivan County is a mere hour away, it is a different world from Saugerties. Whereas Ulster County is thriving, with restaurants, shops and well-kept homes, much of Sullivan sports rundown or abandoned homes and unsightly bungalow colonies. We narrowed our search to the

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| 11

our possessions stored in outbuildings for nesting mice. Visitors now to the house are impressed by its artistic beauty. My plan is to hang before and after pictures on the walls of each room, just as I see in renovated historical buildings.

I am the sort of person who needs to learn through experience. After having moved into a newly built home and into another one in the midst of renovation, I realize that Donald is right.

Building new is easier. The positive side of restoration comes from the satisfaction of saving an abandoned house, and in so doing preserving the history of an old farming community.

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Stripping an old house down to its bones reveals potential, but can also make it harder to feel moved in. The result is often a hankering for the clarity of all one has moved from, especially if it was built new from the very start.

Sundown-Claryville area, the lovely place through which we had driven years before.

Donald wanted a house in need of renovation on a south-facing mountain (for solar power). He preferred a fixer-upper to land because he didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want to leave tools and materials unattended, especially as we lived so far away. We found few houses that fit our requirements, most of them in horrible condition and overpriced. We finally purchased two abandoned houses on adjoining lots, one on Sundown Road and the other on a south-facing hill. The plan was to fix the larger house on the road for my parents and the other one on the hill for us, so we could all be together just as we were in Saugerties. However, my parents died in 2010. We moved into the larger house, which appeared to be in the best shape of the two.

Notice the word â&#x20AC;&#x153;appeared.â&#x20AC;? Donald ended up having to jack up the house to put in footings and a slab. Then he gutted the inside and rebuilt it room by room. He saved most of the original wood to use as trim, and to support the house he installed

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15, 2016 12 | Sept.

Home Hudson Valley

PAUL SMART

Hudson Valley towns provide views to their rural surroundings for those, such as the author, who may have had ambivalence about moving away from the getaways they once dreamed of.

My broken America Sometimes one needs a small town to find oneself

By Paul Smart

I

moved back into town from the country because of childproofing worries. Plus, an author friend talked a bit too convincingly about how end-times were nigh, which got me looking at our old school house in the woods with new eyes.

Like many moved to the region from New York City, I was drawn here by dreams of an idyllic rural lifestyle. Mind you, this was before the Internet. The day I drove a U-Haul north from Brooklyn nearly 30 years ago was a flood event. Yet my second-floor rental overlooking a raging creek stayed dry and warm, with a small woodstove and non-interrupted electricity to run a folksy soundtrack during my unpacking.

After a decade of living in city hovels, I thrilled at the chores of my new life: finding furniture from auctions and yard sales, lending homey touches to a badly renovated space, and chopping endless cords of wood. But within a year I wanted more: a full house. I rented again, this time deeper in the woods to an old three-bedroom log cabin. I redid windows, put in a bathtub, redid a porch and verandah, and eventually put in a large garden with a fence around it. I hosted piles of friends intent on making their own moves to the area.

Within another two years I wanted even more house. With the help of family, I bought my own place even deeper into the mountains, a good 15-minute drive to the nearest store. That old

seven-bedroom boarding house, surrounded by a cemetery and left vacant after several previous attempts at habitation by couples who only found divorce, came with its own yard-sale finds and auction furniture.

It took more than a month for me just to get its systems up and running adequately for basic living. The structure itself had to be bolted back together and placed back up onto its fieldstone foundation. Its old boiler, set in a room at the center of the 150-year-old clapboard building, was in need of a good cleaning.

The shed kitchen got not only a scrubbing but also a jerry-rigged center island painted blue and yellow to mimic the then-new craze for this place called Ikea. It got an even more improvised sink and cabinets. Everything, including the battered floors, got coats of paint.

I never had the money to fix that old cemetery house up as it deserved. Later buyers would do that. But I lasted there ten years.

Then I met my wife-to-be and moved out of the mountains to a former schoolhouse a bit closer to others, and to towns. Even more home-improve-

Home assistance can help

S

o you’re renting, or facing harder times than you had anticipated? How do you fix up your home for winter, and the rest of the year, when the money’s just not there?

New York State’s Healthy Neighborhoods Program (HNP), locally available in Columbia, Dutchess and Orange counties, might be able to help. HNP seeks to reduce the burden of housing-related illness and injury by providing in-home assessments and interventions for asthma, tobacco cessation, indoor air quality, lead, fire safety, and other environmental health hazards. It uses housing, health, and socioeconomic indicators from census and other sources to identify housing in high-risk areas, that are identified. The HNP uses a combination of door-to-door canvassing (roughly 67 percent of visits) and referrals (32 percent of visits) to reach residents in high-risk areas.

During a visit, the home is assessed for environmental health and safety issues, after which an outreach worker provides education (written and verbal), referrals and finally products to help residents correct or reduce housing hazards. According to the program’s website, about 22 percent of all homes visited receive an optional revisit, which are typically scheduled three to six months after the initial visit. Among items provided to help people solve their housing health issues are smoke and CO detectors, fire extinguishers, cleaning supplies, child-safety items and asthma prevention items.

Also available on a seasonal basis is the federally funded HEAP program that assists low-income New Yorkers with the cost of heating their homes, as well as an emergency benefits for households in a heat or heat-related energy emergency. HEAP operates through county social service agencies. Regular benefits run from November into April, while the emergency component runs from early January to early April.

For eligible households, HEAP also provides a heating-equipment repair and replacement benefit, along with a heating-equipment tuneup prior to the start of the heating season until November 4. For information call 1-800-342-3009.

Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley ment projects swallowed our lives, including the building of a new bedroom/office wing, the completion of an outside studio, and plenty of interior upgrades.

Then we found ourselves with a newborn, after which everything changed.

I moved back into town from the country because of childproofing worries. Plus, an author friend talked a bit too convincingly about how the end of time was nigh, which got me looking at our old schoolhouse in the woods with new eyes.

W

e set our wee one up in what had been my office, now an ante-room to our new bedroom, with a strange bed ledge that just happened to be the perfect height for diaper changes. We added a new sink, in a back bathroom, that was the perfect size for bathing babies in. And over the next year everything was cozy and perfect.

When young Milo learned to crawl, we noticed how many rock surfaces there were in our home.

There seemed to be stairs everywhere, plus weeds and more rocks outside, not to mention a woodstove at the center of everything, giant old overheated radiators, and that bedroom we had to tiptoe through to get to ours.

We spent many nights trying to figure out how to reconfigure our home to fit our new reality. And then our friend Jim came for dinner, wanting to see the baby.

The man had just published a series of pieces about how oil was running out and about how American lifestyles needed to change dramatically. He talked about starting a series of novels to explicate his theories, and then ranted on about how the biggest hits would be taken by American cities, so vertical and separated were they from food sources. He also was critical of modern rural residences, reliant on deep wells that needed electricity to work. He noted the dependence of a nearly extinct sense of local community for supplies.

After Jim left, I lay in bed wondering what would be involved putting a cistern into our old belfry, now used as an aerie for watching videos.

Could we run electricity up a hill a quarter-mile from the fast-paced creek our property touched upon? Would vendors eventually start taking a horse and carriage out to areas like ours, distributing food stuffs and hardware supplies like they had until a century back?

Within a fortnight we started looking into village homes around the area.

T

he first few weeks in our new home up on a hill in Catskill, overlooking the Catskills I used to inhabit, were as disconcerting as might be expected. Even the two months we spent preparing the place by stripping wallpaper and painting, moving walls and completely redoing a huge kitchen room from a Sizzler Steakhouse-like monstrosity with Tiki overtones into a Scandinavian-themed loft space, hadnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t prepared us for the forgotten phenomenon of streetlights blocking stars, fire sirens and train whistles, arguing neighbors, or the awkward sound of the manhole cover thwapping at odd moments all night long out front.

Our kid loved the carpeting in that loft-like kitchen space, where he could bound about while we cooked dinner. He had his own room, across a hall from ours. We could all walk to Main Street in five minutes to see a movie, or get ice cream, and walk ten minutes in another direction to a preschool. There were other kids in the neighborhood.

We even had a wall fireplace that could be turned

on and off with a remote control, third-floor guest rooms and studio spaces, and renters on our second floor to pay most of the mortgage each month.

Did our efforts involve renovation work? Of course it did. Houses, especially those over 150 years old in their bones, need work. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve had to paint the place, fix pipes and ice-dam situations that flooded my kidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bedroom, put in fences for our dog, and spend a decade puzzling out how to solve a leaking spot in that giant kitchen that weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve finally admitted will require a whole new roof. We might also install solar paneling.

Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve done some things right, redoing the topfloor guest rooms for Airbnb use, and then securing a long-term rental tenant, which turned the whole place into something not unlike a boarding house. We switched our heat to natural gas. We shifted our gardens, and expanded them. We put in a playset for the kid (weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re now thinking about replacing it with a pool of some sort). We have to start painting again after a decade.

Occasionally we bring up the idea of moving somewhere else. Our son will have none of it. He learned to walk here, to read and play here, to watch television and spend hours on smartphones and other electronic devices here. He has friends nearby and can now walk down to Main Street

| 13

himself. The place keeps paying for itself, with our â&#x20AC;&#x153;boardersâ&#x20AC;? now friends sharing in the house and its chores.

Do we miss living in the country? Not at all. We can see it out our kitchen, from our big back yard.

Or smell it, this time of year, whenever a skunk clambers through the yard.

We actually spend more time in rural settings than before, taking drives out to favorite hiking spots to run the dog or spend family days by and in creeks or fields, or along the mighty river that runs by our town.

Our friend Jim ended up writing those novels about a dystopian America returned to small towns like those in the Hudson Valley. And I often lie in bed at night figuring out how our town could harness its waterfalls, or the Hudsonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s flow, should the electricity ever go out. Or run passenger trains and day boats to other places. The electricity has never gone out in our home, by the way, not even for an hour.

What I miss, though, is renting. I miss not owning. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m tired of being responsible for house repairs and for the comforts of my own renters.

But thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another story, one beyond childproofing worries, let alone the dystopian dreams of a broken America approaching.

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15, 2016 14 | Sept.

Home Hudson Valley

Asset or liability?

The insurance agent’s perspective

By Terence P Ward

I

f you consider your home an investment, you might seek to make improvements that are most likely to enhance the sale price. Think kitchen and bathroom updates, and new landscaping or a thorough washing to enhance curb appeal.

To anyone working at your insurance company, your home is their liability. That’s why they will, to a fault, recommend work that will improve safety, eliminate hazards, and minimize the impact of natural disasters. If those recommendations become official, failure to comply could lead to a cancelled policy. That’s not to say that advice from an insurance agent isn’t good advice. Most of us will rest easier if we never have to file a claim against our homeowner’s policy.

First and foremost is your home’s roof. “Ten years is okay, but if your roof is fifteen years old, they’re going to be looking for a new one within a few years,” said Heather Petrollese, an agent with the Devine Agency in New Paltz. Leaks in the roof can lead to many other problems, such as water that sneaks in and freezes in winter, causing damage as it expands, and that nourishes mold when the weather permits, include toxic and destructive varieties that are costly to remove. The same water can damage sheet rock and carpets throughout the home.

“Water damage starts with the roof,” agreed Ralph Smith, who works at Accent Financial in Highland. “Claims that come up this time of year are usually from the roof and gutters.” Gutters are supposed to carry water away from the building to avoid that sort of damage, but if they aren’t properly designed or they haven’t been cleaned (Smith recommends twice a year) water might end up in places where it shouldn’t. “Check the downspouts, and make sure they flow away from the house,” he said. Watch for ice dams that might clog them during the colder months. “I had that happen in my house two years ago, and water started flowing in through the windows” when the thaw came,

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We think of realtors as the best consultants for what we need for our homes’ value, but the author finds that just as often it’s your insurance company that knows best what needs the work first.

Beware of anything that can harm a roof, or fill a basement.

Smith recalled. side somewhere, Weidenkeller said. “That can Todd Weidenkeller, of the eponymous agency in save family-room carpets in the downstairs part New Paltz, thinks jobs that can prevent water isof the house.” sues are a top priority. He recommended inspectInsofar as they need to be working to prevent pipes from freezing, heating systems are tied ing the home perimeter to find drainage pipes closely to water damage, An annual filter change that might have become clogged with rocks or and maintenance by a professional is the miniroots. “Find the lowest corner, and have a contracmum. Consider updating to a more efficient modtor put in a clean-out and run water in to make el if yours is old. Chimneys — for oil and wood sure it’s flowing out” rather than backing up in-

Winter plumbing tips

E

very winter there comes a time when you must call a plumber, usually at a time when everyone else is calling the same plumber as well. There are things you can do to prevent or minimize the likelihood of seasonal plumbing problems.

First off, make sure any pipes that are near outside walls or otherwise threatened by below-freezing temperatures are insulated with foam padding sleeves or special insulating tape. Though that’s often a dangerous idea, some use space heaters or lamps from a safe distance. Be sure and check on your home’s vulnerable areas regularly. In fact, try to run water from every valve in your house with some regularity throughout the winter.

Next, be sure to disattach and com pletely turn off any garden hoses, or outdoor spigots. Drain any residual water. While you’re at it, clear your gutters to prevent ice-dam backups come winter. Also, treat your sinks regularly to prevent clogs which in turn can create freeze situations when it gets really cold.

Remember that you spend more time cooking over one stove during winter, and that the holidays tend to double the amount of cooking you do. Be careful with what you dump down the drain. Similarly, don’t try to use the disposer on just anything.

Feel for drafts the first time it gets cold. Spend some time in your basement and attic, garage and crawl spaces. Check under cabinets. These places are often the first to freeze up.

If it gets really cold: remember to leave open the cabinet doors under the faucets to allow more heat in. Run a little water through each valve in the house regularly, and heat the whole house and not just individual rooms. If the pipes do freeze up, turn off the water at the main valve and open your faucets.

Wait for your plumber to arrive before trying to thaw out pipes.

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color Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley alike — should be cleaned annually to prevent fires. Having someone conduct a through inspection can help identify problems early, like a failed flue allowing rain to fall into the burner below.

Electrical systems, particularly older ones, represent another major fire risk. While fuses represent a certain amount of safety, updating to a code-compliant circuit breaker is much safer, and upgrading the service can avoid circuits being tripped in the first place.

O

utside, the trees that help save on energy bills could lead to damage if they’re too close. Branches and roots should be kept from looming over the roof or probing the foundation. “That can be a hazard waiting to happen,” said Weidenkeller.

According to Petrollese, it’s commonplace for insured homes to be reinspected every few years to identify issues of concern, like any of those already mentioned. Representatives will “make rec-

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Home Hudson Valley ommendations, like for overhanging trees, little things like repairs. They really have to be done, or they will cancel the policy.â&#x20AC;? Anyone who has given a mortgage on their home must have a policy, lest one be purchased on their behalf. â&#x20AC;&#x153;You donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want forced-place insurance,â&#x20AC;? Petrollese said, using the industry term. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s really expensive, and it doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have a liability component.â&#x20AC;? In other words, the price will be added to the monthly mortgage payment, and wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t protect you from getting sued if, for example, that overhanging tree branch falls

and conks someone on the head.

Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s another kind of improvement that will cost little to no money, but will in return reduce fire and water damage, trips and falls, and even pest infiltration issues. What it will require is e sweat equity devoted to focused de-cluttering. Accumulations of boxes, bags, and bins can not only cause problems, but also obscure other issues until they become too big to address simply. Oily rags can spontaneously burst into flame. Stacks of file boxes can hide mouse holes, insect damage and

water leaks. Clothes that are stored for years without inspection might be harboring moths or other pests. A weekend (or more or less, depending on your situation) of going through those items in an orderly manner makes it easier to decide what should be sold, donated or trashed.

Avoiding stressful insurance claims and expensive forced-place insurance -- and sleeping better at night, to boot -- is as easy as following the friendly-but-sometimes-mandatory recommendations provided by the insurance professionals in your life.

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Fall Home Improvement pt. 2

Adding up the changes over a homeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s lifetime Animals inside and outside your home Making that empty nest feel less empty Get ready for the winter now!

15, 2016 18 | Sept.

Home Hudson Valley

Home exercise The equipment’s easy, the regiment’s another matter

By Jodi LaMarco

T

hey say that the closer the gym, the more you’ll go, and you can’t beat a home fitness center for convenience. Having a personal exercise center doesn’t mean you need a spare room filled with expensive equipment or stacks of DVDs. As it turns out, your home is already a fitness center. All you need is a little creativity and the will power to get in shape.

Here are some suggestions to help you get started.

Begin by finding exercise routines that fit your lifestyle. Working from home? Work time is a great opportunity to slip in a set of Iron-Man Procrastination Desk Squats. As you type, wait for the inevitable stream of interruptions that get you out of your chair and on your feet. This may range from the immediate demand of a screaming baby or a delivery from UPS to mild distractions like a vague sound that maybe you thought you might have heard outside (or not).

If you sit in a rolling desk chair, try this variation: Push yourself away from your desk with enough force to allow your arms and legs to fully extend. Hold for five seconds. Using your arms for balance, dismount into a low squat, keeping your back straight. Rise to stand, then run toward the distracting noise and away from your work. Start with at least four reps per day, with the goal of building to as many as you can while still meeting your deadline.

Cleaning out the fridge? Spice up a foul chore with a set of lunges. Fridge Lunges will help to strengthen your quads, and also puts a comfortable buffer of space between you and that long-forgotten head of lettuce. Stand with enough room so that when you lunge forward your foot lands roughly one foot away from the refrigerator door. With fridge door open, stand with feet together. Step forward with one foot. As you lower your back knee toward the ground, move your front knee forward until it is positioned over your front ankle. Lower your back knee as close to the ground as you can without allowing it to touch the floor. With arms extended forward, remove offending food item from refrigerator. Return to standing start position and toss offending food item into garbage or compost bin. Repeat as necessary.

With the summer games in Rio only recently behind us, you can also try adding a few Olympics-themed exercises to your routine. You may already be familiar with the Fifty-Meter Laundry Schlep. This exercise pairs nicely with the Fifty-Meter Forgotten Sock Dash. See how many times you can race to your washing machine as you discover dish towels and stray undershirts in desperate need of immediate care before the spin cycle begins.

Once your clothes are in the dryer, move on to

WIKICOMMONS

There are those who dream of a gymnasium inside their home. Then there are those among us who find everyday chores can be enough to keep one fit... at least until the time comes to spring for that indoor pool. some super-fun Household Hurdles. If your family members tend to shed personal items like a forest of deciduous trees, your impulse may be to remove this familial detritus from your floors before it develops its own ecosystem. Don’t. Leave these items right where they are. Household Hurdles will help you to develop flexibility and coordination. With practice, you’ll be bounding over your kids’ backpacks with the agility of a woodland nymph.

T

he changing seasons bring even more opportunities to get fit. When autumn comes, try out a set of Kid Hoists. Though not restricted to the first week of school, Kid Hoists performed during this time tend to be the most challenging, so be sure to maintain proper form. Taking a firm athletic stance, gently lift howling child into booster seat. Be sure to engage your glutes, quads, and core to avoid straining your back. Secure child with seatbelt and drive to school.

When you assume your stance for the second segment of the Kid Hoist, remember to get low.

Children in distress have the ability to assume the gravity of a collapsing star, making them difficult to remove from the back seat. Deposit child in classroom, then return to car and consider feasibility of home schooling until feelings of guilt subside.

You can also brainstorm ways to sneak in a workout as you tackle your end-of-year yardwork.

Draining and coiling a garden hose increases upper-body strength in your arms and shoulders.

When done with proper posture, raking up fallen leaves engages your core, building both abdomi-

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nal muscles and resentment of the lazy teenaged child who should be helping you, but is instead sitting on your couch playing World of Warcraft on his laptop.

I

n a few more months, you’ll trade your rake for a snow shovel. When shoveling for exercise, remember: It’s not about increasing muscle tone or efficiently moving snow. It’s about sheer endurance of body-breaking drudgery.

To begin, slide the blade of your shovel into the snow. With thighs engaged, thrust your load atop a nearby snow berm. Letting the shovel fall to the ground, place your hand on your lower back, cursing inaudibly under your breath.

Pick up your shovel and reload with snow. This time, allow the shovel to sag toward the ground as you shuffle toward a new dumping spot. To complete the sequence, feebly dump snow onto closer, smaller snowbank. What’s that, eight? That must be at least eight reps, right?

Nope, that was just the warmup. Now, on to the real workout. Using all of your body weight, maneuver your shovel as though it were a plow, smooshing a half-scoop of snow across your driveway as far as it will go. Looks like you’re panting pretty hard. Do you really need to do the entire driveway? It’s not like you use the whole thing, just that little part over there.

This is probably the appropriate time to move on to a modified version of the exercise. Using a minimal amount of effort, repeatedly ram shovel into snow until you have cleared a space just big enough to slide your car into. Great job! You’re done!

Well, not quite. Actually, you had better hurry up and get inside. You still have to squeeze in a circuit of Stray Cup Roundups and at least three reps of Cordless-Phone-to-Base Relays before you start dinner.

Good luck, and happy exercising.

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Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley

| 19

Living with pets What they add to our homes, and need from them

By Chris Rowley

W

e humans are a funny species. One of the things that makes us stand out in the world of animals is that we like to have other animals around. We love a bewilderingly wide variety of species and genera of pets.

Some people are quite happy without pets, and many of the rest of us sometimes wonder about those people. What’s wrong with them? How could they forgo the pleasures of having a dog?

Or a cat? Or rabbits, birds, fish, hamsters, horses, guinea pigs, gerbils, snakes, not to mention wildlife that latches on temporarily, and sometimes forever. While mostly we only tend to love and adopt vertebrates, there are people who tend octopi, clams and jellyfish. And of course giant spiders (ten-inch-wide tarantulas, the most popular, don’t often bite their owners, but are fragile and can be easily damaged if handled).

What is it with pets and wildlife that grips so many of us? Part of it may be that pets give us back “love,” or something. I mean, dogs do love their owners. Cats merely tolerate them, and allow familiarity with their wonderful selves, for which we have to be grateful.

I know cats by this point, having cared for quite a few of them. They give back with their predatory beauty. They are the natural athletes (non-aquatic) of mammalia. While cats may cuddle and enjoying lying in people’s laps, they do not love. They offer approval.

Dogs are different that way. Other animals are capable of affection. Horse people swear by some horses, who exhibit very strong affection.

Parrots — another story all of their own — are not only very smart but also often very loyal. They live as long as we do. Marshall Josip Tito, who once ruled Yugoslavia and died in 1980, had a parrot named Koki. That parrot lives on in a tourist trap in Croatia today. Whether it misses Tito, I don’t know, but lonely old parrots are an issue.

The thing with pets goes far beyond seeking love and affirmation from them. We love them for themselves, and for the ticket back to the natural world that they offer. In place of that world, we often have concerns about the future. We’ve ended up with the role of the adults at the party, paying the mortgage, looking after the stuff, filling the pantry, repairing everything, working nine to five.

Cats really don’t seem to care about the future.

Just dinner, that’s what counts.

Dogs were once nothing but working animals.

Now, not so much. Only one in a thousand has an actual job, guarding sheep, or fetching ducks that have been shot out of the sky. The rest of the dog population is there for us to enjoy and feed, while they live for fun and walks. Most dogs aren’t worrying about stuff, they’re content just being themselves. I have to imagine that the same is true for pet clams and tarantulas. (In fact the whole concept of pet clams is a bit weird for me.)

A love of animals, a love of nature. The two are close, though in different proportions with different people. Birdwatchers are one variety of nature lovers, deer hunters another. Both spend considerable time in the fields and woods. Either of them may own a dog, or even a cat, and will be familiar with the issues our pets can bring us. To those of us who do love the outdoors and nature in all its glory, animals are an important part of life.

They’re a way of bringing nature inside, into our adult world with its little phone screens, emails, bills and work.

The bigger the dog, the more exercise he or she would like. When choosing a dog, hey, go to the nearest shelter first, please. I’ll guarantee you that it is jammed with dogs who need a home. Buying puppies at the mall contributes to a puppy-mill business which should not be encouraged. Get the sort of dog that you are capable of keeping up with

WIKICOMMONS

Dogs and cats, and even reptiles and sometimes birds, can make what was once a house feel like a home. But they also need renovation touches all their own to make their lives truly comfortable, and comforting. when it comes to walks and the pursuit of a frisbee, stick or other suitable object. Some kinds of dog, like border collies, seem inexhaustible, and would really like you to provide them with a flock of sheep to keep in line.

C

hoosing a cat? Again, check out the shelter. Some excellent choices are available. Every shelter is packed out with cats.

Already have a dog, and want a cat? That can work. Dogs are more flexible that way than cats.

Depends rather on both dog and cat, but especially on cat. We have to understand something about cats here. Cats can be sweet, I mean, I’ve heard this said. But in my experience cats can also be completely tyrannical, capable of extreme nastiness. Before you subject your poor dog to this, make sure he or she is capable of standing up to the feline pressure.

Bringing a dog into a house with cat or cats can be very difficult, unless the cat is young enough to be able to take on something new, like a dog, to be managed along with the rest of the household.

Older cats will not be so forgiving, and some dogs will just kill the cat. Happens. The best results come when both animals are young and they will often adopt each other.

A great many issues come with pet ownership.

The biggest one is responsibility. Unfortunately, this has never been our strongest suit. Far too many animals are brought into our lives, loved for a few years, and then abandoned.

That’s the cruel side of our nature. We take the animals to the shelter and leave them behind.

They never understand why they couldn’t go with us to wherever we were going. Our animal shelters and dog pounds are crammed with animals that once had forever homes and are now on the slide to being euthanized.

More than seven and a half million pet animals go into shelters across the nation every year. Some

are strays and around 540,000 dogs are returned to owners, along with around 100,000 cats. Of shelter dogs, 31% are killed — “euthanized,” our weasel word for what we do. Of shelter cats, 41% are terminated. Less than 5% of stray cats are ever returned to their “owners.”

That is a thought for all of us who love our pets to keep in mind. Cats should be kept indoors, and only allowed outside if they can be monitored and kept on the property. Easier said than done, of course, but a stray cat is usually a dead one.

Dogs, too, should be indoor animals. Some dogs will not roam, or not go far. Others will visit all surrounding counties. Chaining a dog up in the yard, however, can be cruel. Invisible fence is better. Lots of walks and Frisbee-chasing is best.

Pets are good for us, a psychological cushion against the harsh reality of modern life. We crave the natural, and they give us that. But they also need their shots, their flea collars, and responsible care from us. That’s the biggest test of all.

15, 2016 20 | Sept.

Home Hudson Valley

PHOTOS BY VIOLET SNOW

Looking after the needs of one’s home, be it owned or rented, is important, it is also increasingly recognized that an equal sense of stewardship is needed to the land that surrounds one’s abode, as well as our municipalities, the better for our natural world to survive and prosper.

One nature Some tips for more responsible stewardship

by Violet Snow

earth-friendly principles that guided these efforts can be used by homeowners in their own landscaping, to encourage bees and butterflies that pollinate many food plants, conserve or manage water, and reduce our carbon footprint.

Plant a meadow

A

lot of problems with the health of our planet are being addressed by attempts to minimize human impact, which is good,” said Bryan Quinn of One Nature, an environmental landscaping firm in Beacon. “But I also want to focus on how to maximize positive impact.”

Quinn has applied environmental principles to such diverse projects as the Etsy corporate headquarters rooftop garden in Brooklyn, an agro-ecological master plan for the Bee Farm in the Catskill Creek watershed, the Ash Creek ecological dune restoration in Bridgeport, CT, and the currently in-progress Beacon pollinator project. The same

“

You can do your bit to help counter the widely acknowledged decline in the bee population by cultivating more pollinator-friendly plants — which are largely absent from lawns. Quinn encourages his clients to minimize their lawn area and grow meadows instead. The feasibility of this conversion depends on where you live. Many suburban areas ban tall grasses, and even in the country your close neighbors may not be pleased to see you turn your lawn into a meadow.

“If you do it little by little,” said Quinn, “the neighbors won’t be shocked. The key is to do it in a controlled manner that is going to look good as an end result.” Some people convert only ten percent to half their lawn, with a clear boundary demar-

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cated. Others turn over the back yard to meadow and keep a lawn in front.

The simplest approach to establishing a meadow is to let your lawn grow out. The full-grown grasses will soon be mixed with wildflowers of all kinds.

A more intentional design involves laying waste cardboard (those boxes from UPS and your new TV, dismantled) on top of the grass and adding six inches of wood chips or mulch. Herbaceous plugs — ready-to-plant seedlings — can be installed by poking holes in the cardboard. The grass-smothering cardboard breaks down in three or four weeks and will be totally decayed within a year, while your meadow grows above.

“We use only native plants that would’ve been in New York State when Henry Hudson sailed up the river,” said Quinn. “The animal community has adapted to those plants over thousands of years.

The monarch butterfly only nests on milkweed, butterflyweed or swamp milkweed.” Native plants are also adapted to our climate. After the first few

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Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley

| 21

a need for commercial fertilizers and the attendant chemical pollution. By supporting more plant mass than a lawn, a meadow absorbs more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, reducing, one meadow at a time, the impact of climate change.

Butterflies and bees provide sustainability to one’s ecosystem, as well as an innate liveliness. Treat them all with respect, and as a major item on one’s home improvement list. weeks of establishing roots, they don’t need extra water, and they will flourish in sun to full shade.

He recommends native grasses, such as little and big bluestem, and plants such as goldenrod, native rudbeckias, asters, monarda, heliopsis (our indigenous sunflower), and vines, including native clematis and Virginia creeper.

In the Hudson Valley, deer ticks are a concern, but carefully scheduled mowing or weed-whacking can minimize the tick population. Mowing in mid-May coincides with a key breeding time for deer ticks, eliminating the tall plants they use for egg laying. A second mowing in late fall spreads

around the wildflower seeds and discourages the sprouting of trees that would tend to move the meadow in the direction of forest.

Parents often feel lawns are essential for kids to run around on, and Quinn agrees that children may benefit from a small lawn, adding, “But there’s a whole different type of play that happens in forests and meadows or on paths.”

Best of all, a meadow saves money and work.

Less mowing means consuming less gasoline and spewing less pollutants into the air and soil. Once plants are established, they require no watering in most habitats, conserving water supplies. Meadows are self-sustaining, without

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Home Hudson Valley

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Water management

Quinn makes exceptions to native plantings when it comes to edible trees and hedgerows. â&#x20AC;&#x153;In my grand utopian scheme, we have to have agriculture,â&#x20AC;? he said, â&#x20AC;&#x153;so we canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t limit to ourselves to native plants. Fruits also feed the wildlife.â&#x20AC;?

Instead of planting exotic ornamentals, consider apples, pears or pawpaws. The luscious pawpaw, or custard-apple, is better-known in the South, but Quinn says the trees can grow in the Hudson Valley. Juneberry (a.k.a. serviceberry or shadbush) yields floppy white flowers in early spring and tasty sweet berries in June. Elderberry, mulberry, and Asian pear will also do well locally.

If your property is large enough, you might consider building a small wetland by collecting water from your roof in a downspout and conveying it to a low point on the land. â&#x20AC;&#x153;I work a lot with permaculture design,â&#x20AC;? said Quinn. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of its principles is to keep water on your property. I built a wetland in the middle of someoneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s 2000-square-foot vegetable garden. The water goes into the soil and moves laterally, doing a passive job of keeping the garden soils moist. It also creates an opportunity for esthetic design. If you have a square or circular or teardrop-shaped wetland, juxtaposed against meadow or lawn or a paved area, it gives more diversity to the eye.â&#x20AC;?

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Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley Wetlands support plantings of native ferns, switchgrass, rushes, and blue flag iris.

To assist in devising and implementing master plans for parks and farms, One Nature also maintains a native plant nursery. “We collect seeds from the Catskills to get the most local genetics we can,” Quinn explained, “and we deliver them to jobsites. Our biggest client now is the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. It’s often cheaper to plant along stream edges than to manage the silt that erosion causes downstream.” Streamside landowners can also prevent erosion by planting stream banks with willow, alder, red-osier dogwood, and other water-loving species.

Sometimes we feel helpless in the face of ecological problems, but the more we consider the environment in making our decisions the better chance we have of keeping the planet vibrant.

| 23

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Home Hudson Valley

An edible revolution The many virtues in community-based gardening

By Harry Matthews

I

recently heard of a village in north England named Todmorden, in West Yorkshire, that has begun a massive garden project. They’re filling many of their public spaces with vegetables, fruit trees, and herb plantings available to all who want them. As one of the organizers of these open and free gardens stated, “It is an act of investing in kindness, in ourselves and our community’s health that has driven us.”

Living where we do, some of us are singularly favored with some absolutely amazing frigging soil. Often it seems that all one need do here is drop a seed or a plant in our abundantly fertile ground, give it some love, and it will grow. Welcome to the edible landscape.

And welcome to a new age of back-to-the-garden farming, including some of it “underground,” operating on borrowed or lent lands. Or through family resuscitations of old farmsteads that had gone fallow between the latter half of the 1970s and recent years. And other means of building community by sharing the bounty of our fruit trees, the abundance of tomatoes ripening on the vine, and flowers blooming in their delirium-scented headiness.

T

he recently deceased “Guerrilla Gardener” Adam Purple, who spent many of his later years in the Ellenville area, was a great exponent of this type of activism, constructing a huge community garden in an abandoned lot on the Lower East Side. By hauling horse manure on the back of his bike from Central Park, he turned a blighted mid-Seventies forgotten urban landscape into a fertile and dynamically prolific food production center that was shared throughout the neighborhood. In his inimitable and beautifully eccentric way, he created what was at once a grand work of art as well as a zone of spirituality that acted as a green sanctuary from the surrounding hard city. His work was the inspiration

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As gardens move back from something personal and almost competitive to a shared experience, the artfulness of many becomes more pronounced in testament to the power of communal efforts.

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Ever taken in a full tomato harvest? It’s best enjoyed with a whole crowd of friends all cooking sauce, then eating it, as a virtuous celebration. for other urban gardens in New York and other cities around the globe.

That element of gardening as art is more ubiquitous than one thinks. Another Lower East Side legend, blacksmith Tovey Halleck, has transformed fallow farms throughout the Catskills as part of a busy and successful farm-to-table business in recent years. Starting this time of year, many of the region’s top artists focus as much on flowers and vegetables as on their painting or sculpture.

One good friend who lives just up the road has

spent the last 20-plus years with his wife and two children turning their old family farm into a garden of delights. What they grow often becomes the material that make up some of their art works.

I asked him about his underlying philosophy, his ethos, regarding the property they’ve created and how their art continues to evolve. The ensuing conversation seemed to flow out, wandering through many topics from the philosophical gardening bible “The One Straw Revolution” by Masanobu Fukuoka, to the seasonal changes brought on by a mild winter.

Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley As birds sang at the feeders beyond the window and aromas of the fall harvestâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bounty wafted the house, he related his own natural dogma. â&#x20AC;&#x153;We watch and listen to the surrounding nature to understand how it works in and of itself and try to replicate that here,â&#x20AC;? my neighbor said. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Learning from the woods, the fields and the stream, what feeds them, what makes them stronger, helps us to better understand our perennial fruits and flowers, as well as ourselves. Each year we try to figure out ways that we can do less and get more, through natural composting, fertilizing and mulching.

Here we are an equal part of this landscape with all that grows and thrives under our care.â&#x20AC;?

The manâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s son, newly graduated from college, added his generationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s take on the same back-tothe-land sentiments. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Not only are we lessening our carbon footprint but weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re trying to create a positive footprint in its place,â&#x20AC;? he told us. â&#x20AC;&#x153;From wild foraging to re-activating long-unused fruit trees, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re also recycling thrown away food and materials from local businesses that can be utilized to not only feed people but also feed the earth.â&#x20AC;?

In their aesthetically-motivated endeavors, they (and many other friends I know) have teamed up with members of a local collective, a loose-knit group of enthusiastic grower-farmers, builders, artisans, and alternative lifestyle experimenters who have gone further underground after an initial burst of publicity several years ago. From building and living in tiny houses, planting community gardens and having garden-share days, to trying to live with minimal use of both money and fossil fuels, the collective act as an educational and inspirational springboard for many wanting to lessen our footprint on this land we love. By trying to eliminate money from the equation, age-old customs of barter, trade and share are brought back to the table, practices that had been mostly forgotten in the glaring haze of rampant over-consumerism.

Having participated in a number of their garden-share days myself (â&#x20AC;&#x153;Anyone need 30 pounds of zucchini?â&#x20AC;?), I can attest to the absolutely liberating feeling of a cashless transaction. Weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve all come to look forward to our â&#x20AC;&#x153;undergroundâ&#x20AC;? friendsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; regular cookouts, which usually follow big harvests, all handled collectively.

bounty we bring to our tables, and to come away with some amazing fruit, veggies, herbs, nuts and tinctures to boot. The information, about subjects from Hugelkultur (raised beds made from old branches, grass clippings and other compostables) to rain-water catchment systems, vertical hanging gardens and simple vegetable dehydrators, flows freely, and offers of help to learn and do any of it are plentiful.

Witnessing all of this, even in its infant stage, is a wonder of far-sighted optimistic creativity mixed with an altruistic idealism at once purposefully non-commercial but more importantly simply humanistic. Are we not at our best when we share with others, give freely of ourselves, our time, our sweat and our humanity?

It often seems that our modern technology-heavy society has pushed us indoors and away from each other and away from nature, locking our faces onto little glowing screens that seem to do little but suck our souls dry. When we do go

out, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in a car, more often than not to a big-box store to spend money we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have on cheap crap we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really need.

Gardening is the antithesis to all that hiding away looking at Facebook. At once you are in the glory of the outside, sticking your hands into the rich earth. Secondly the thrill of pulling a fresh carrot from the ground, a ripe red tomato from a vine, or an apple from a branch and then sharing it with friends and neighbors not only feeds bellies but also more importantly feeds souls.

In this oft-beleaguered world that seems to breed so much hate and degradation, there are waves of hope inherent in growing beautiful and tasty things. We still have a chance to be more human, more community-minded, more connected, and more committed to our Earth.

That, in the end, isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t underground at all, but of the ground. So put down your phones, dust off your trowel or shovel, and get out there and plant some seeds. Happy harvest!

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eople come, like me, to find out what others have been growing and making, to learn techniques to better actualize the

Fall Home Improvement September 2016 An Ulster Publishing publication

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Editorial Writers: Lisa Carroll, Lynne Crockett, Elisabeth Henry, Jodi LaMarco, Harry Matthews, Annie Nocenti, Chris Rowley, Paul Smart, Violet Snow, Sparrow, Kimberly Truitt, Vincent J. Ward PHOTOS: Lynne Crockett, Becca Frank, Annie Nocenti, Dion Ogust, Fawn Potash, Paul Smart, Violet Snow, Sam Truitt, Wikicommons EDITOR: Paul Smart Cover composiite of Dion Ogust photo and Wikicommon components created by Joe Morgan to a concept by Paul Smart LAYOUT: Joe Morgan

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FALL HOME IMPROVEMENT is one of three Home Hudson Valley supplements Ulster Publishing puts out each year. It is distributed in the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s four weekly newspapers and separately at select locations, reaching an estimated readership of over 50,000. Its website is www.homehudsonvalley.com. For more info on upcoming special sections, including how to place an ad, call 845-334-8200, fax 845-334-8202 or email: info@ulsterpublishing.com.

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Here we are The musings of an empty nester

By Elisabeth Henry

Y

ears ago I wrote a piece about the start of the school year and the end of summer. I wrote there would be no more trips to the lake, no more marshmallow roasts in the middle of the horse field, no more nights falling asleep outside, watching the sky, hoping for shooting stars.

At that writing, my next-to-youngest was getting on the school bus for the first time with all the other kids. I was glad to be walking back from the bus stop with my infant son in my arms.

Those salad days of Deep Mommy Time wilted early. I remember reading to all of them on my bed, and the third eldest got up with her own book and left. She was eight.

The very eldest left for the summer to live with an aunt to baby sit young cousins. The second eldest become a computer wizard when it was hard to explain what “the Internet” was (“It’s like a virWIKICOMMONS tual bulletin board, dad”). Conversation became An empty nest is an empty nest, no matter the species.

It will always carry memories of what was, stilted as he disappeared into that new universe. but also a continuing sense of its own eternal beauty. So go homes.

The only photos I have of my youngest child on the way to kindergarten are the back of his head and his little Green Bay Packers of a lifestyle he did not want. And yet, backpack. when the inheritance came in, he swept They grew up to be wonderful people, Molly away with a promise that he’d nevbut I have regrets. I guess every parent er again smell like a billygoat, and she’d does. I lost my temper. Not often, but have everything her heart desired. I did now I know the value of patience in a not even get the chance to say goodbye. way I did not then. I did not hug and kiss I drove past their farm hundreds of them enough (this from my Italian hustimes, experiencing a little pang each band, who is often puzzled by my Waspy time. So the other day I stopped. No ways.) one has stopped there in a decade. The I gave the daughters a master’s-degree driveway is overgrown. I walked through education in how to spot a bad guy and thigh-high brush to the farmhouse door. how to ditch him, but I could not fathom It swung open easily. What I saw inside how to warn our sons about bad girls. took my breath away.

That’s why one of them showed up here It was as though they had decided, with a cocktail waitress who gave my while eating breakfast, to leave. The tahusband the glad eye when she figured ble was set. Everything they owned was he was the money. And that’s why anstill in the house. Dishes, furniture, rugs, other one ditched a goddess/angel, and toys, books, notepads, farmer’s boots and we can only pray he finds another one coats and gloves. If one didn’t know betWIKICOMMONS as good. We think, somehow, he pulled ter, it would seem they were abducted. it off. We met The New One, and she’s Once they make it on to your porch, a bear has nowhere else to go but Everything was covered by a thick layvery cool. I can’t know for sure, because inside. Time to call for official help. And chalk it up to the memories that er of dust, and cobwebs. That’s when the I never learned how to make a boy open make our Catskills and Hudson valley so blessed. passage of time, the nevermore, the days up about personal stuff.

I most regret that I tried to be “fair and balanced” when in the company of other parents who were too competitive, in my view. The hell with that. I should have honored the example of my grandmother, who made it plain that if you were hers, you were the best there is, and she’d wipe the floor with anyone who meant you harm.

Despite the courage and daring of my adventurous nestlings, and my self-doubt, we are a tight family unit. We are in constant touch. I rarely feel empty.

A

nd yet I remember rocking the nursing baby to sleep alone in my room, listening to the night sounds of the rest of the household. Fed and bathed with home work done, they were contented and sleepy. They didn’t fight too much when it was bedtime, knowing we had Harry Potter waiting for us. God bless J.K. Rowling’s prolificacy.

I do “StoryTime” at our local library. My audience members are pre-schoolers. They love my choices, but I think their young mommies and teachers wonder why I bring beat-up, dog-eared and dog-chewed copies of Blueberries for Sal, Millions of Cats, Sheep in a Jeep, King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, among many, many others.

They’ll find out why some day. In the meantime, their little charges climb on my lap and point to the pictures and chuckle at Sal and the bear. I

gone by, hit me hard. rarely feel empty.

It’s not just books I cling to. I have the little cotton blankets that swaddled each child on the way home from the hospital. I have dried flower petals from the bouquets sent in congratulations. I have baby shoes, and first day of school clothes, and yes, that Green Bay Packer backpack. I have the first written words, art work, and whittled figures.

There are handprints and footprints in various cement sidewalks. The artsy one carved her name in almost every bookcase. Their father taught them to paint, to lay tile, to lay brick, and to lay stone.

Their handiwork is all over our property. I rarely feel empty.

I

have time, now, to do the things I love. My life is very full. And yet, the other day, I drove past my friend Molly’s farm. Molly was the salt of the earth, and a loyal, dear, dear friend. She befriended me when others in my small town regarded me as just another suspect newcomer.

Molly and her husband were very successful farmers. Their products were in demand locally, and also in the finest food purveyors in Manhattan. Bloomingdale’s, Dean and DeLuca, Balducci’s.

And then Molly’s husband’s parents died. It turns out they were bluebloods living in some elite enclave in another state. All the while Molly’s husband was mucking chicken, sheep and goat poop, he was really just trying to muck away memories

M

y connection to my children is ongoing and strong. But that golden time in my life is over. For good. I felt a bottomless emptiness watching dust motes settle, listening to the bees buzzing outside the broken window, loving that clematis vine.

I am so grateful to have had this in my life. My children. My mommy friends.

I could easily have missed it. None of my Manhattan friends opted to have children. My life in the city was a golden time, too. Back then, I couldn’t imagine anything better. But here we are.

A while ago, thirty hipsters from Brooklyn (my daughter being one of them) came to our place for a pig roast. They brought the pig, and the wine and beer. We provided the spit, the wood, the sides, and the pie. We all sat up late in the night, trading stories about life in the city, and adventures out in the wide world.

I looked around at that house-full of happy human beings who related to me and my husband as just two more storytellers, with pieces of our lives to share. In a time when most of us don’t know what the world is coming to, I can dare to be hopeful, because those young ones are in the world. They will be in charge, and knowing how they skirted disaster, avoided arrest, rescued dear friends, found safe haven in a dangerous world, and risked it all and dared to love, I know they are good.

Sept. 15, 2016 Home Hudson Valley

| 27

Life of a champion Learning to live with imperfections

By Annie Nocenti

T

his is a home un-improvement story.

Sometimes I stand in my yard and wonder what brought me to this spot.

How do any of us end up on our particular spot on the planet? Twenty-five years ago a friend saw a sign “waterfront land for sale by owner” and we drove in to look.

A big red chair sat high on the riverbank. A decrepit but regal chair, a high-backed throne made of thick red leather with metal footrest, perhaps once one of a row of barber’s chairs.

I sat down and thought: This chair has been waiting for me.

An egret took delicate, halting steps into the creek. A swallow skimmed the water’s surface.

A guy and a dog in matching lifejackets drifted downriver in a canoe and waved. A rope swing hung off a willow tree. The river brought life drifting by.

The land came with summer cabin that had fallen into disrepair. I had a good feeling standing inside the wreckage. Kerosene lamps, pitchforks, fishing nets and double-ended saws lay about as testaments to someone’s survival. Shafts of dusty light streamed in through the holes in the siding, illuminating forgotten objects: old bones and doll parts I would later end up using in a stop-action animation film, a leather table with brass fasteners I would go on to serve hundreds of meals and deal hundreds of poker games on, a cane fishing pole I would use to catch many fish.

Did this cabin know I was coming?

There was another structure on the property, one I didn’t feel was waiting for me. It was a 1957 Champion trailer with cantilever windows and interior walls peppered with kitsch slogans and bathroom humor (the toilet seat depicted a man flushing himself away as he cried “goodbye, cruel world!”), and religious objects such as a wood relief carving of The Last Supper. But unlike the cabin, all its systems worked – heat, shower, gas stove. So we lived in the trailer while we fixed up the cabin.

Trailers require little maintenance, other than a coat of silver roof paint every couple years to ward off leaks, and peppermint spray to repel mice. I decided that if I was going to live in a tin can, I needed to own it. It looked like a train car, and this was the early 1990s, when graffiti tags on subways and sidewalk stencil art promoting bands

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Home improvement is not always about repairs. Sometimes its about recognizing, and enhancing, all that a home has become by its own will. were rampant in the city. I made some stencils, and painted black and blue fish up the sides of the trailer. I stenciled our pickup truck with fish. We built a makeshift bar in the yard, made from plywood and tree stumps, and I fish-stenciled that, too. Black and blue fish spread like a virus.

Though we finally fixed up the summer cabin enough to move in, the Champion remained as extra housing. When a family in need of a temporary place to stay moved in, to lessen the stress of the transition I let the kids tag their names on the trailer. One painted a yellow submarine. Another stenciled leaves in neon orange spray paint all over the toilet seat. An artist friend painted a black-and-blue hound’s-tooth pattern on the floor.

Over the years the trailer got more tags, all amateur tags by kids. Last year a local 15-year-old filmmaker made a film in the trailer, one that will be in the Woodstock Film Festival this year (Stray Bullets, by Jack Fessenden). As part of the shoot, the actors added their own tags to the trailer.

Over time the trailer has become a colorful blight, an aluminum hunk of New York City subway car embedded in the country. Friends even started gently suggesting I haul it off.

Once a local fireman asked me if I would consider helping train young firefighters by letting them set fires in the trailer to learn how to put them out. I considered it, even as I wondered if he was just teasing me.

A

state trooper pulled in one day, glancing at the graffiti-covered trailer and asking me whether I had noticed any gang activity in the area. I smiled at his young, earnest, crimefighting face.

When I think of hauling it off, I hesitate. How decrepit and ugly does this trailer need to get before I banish it to the trailer graveyard?

An elderly filmmaker came for a visit and made a video in the Champion, as if he could tenderly relate to its swayback roof, its flat-tire feet, its tar-

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nish, sag and rust. My friends in their fifties like to gaze at the 59-year-old Champion, as though looking at their own reflection in a mirror, and to compare how they’ve aged to how it’s aged. They always come away feeling like they’re doing better.

That alone is a reason to keep it.

The summer cabin still has missing window trim. A few wires hang out of the walls, waiting for their sockets and plates. There are scribbles on unpainted drywall, indications of where tile and light sockets should eventually go.

As I warned, this is the opposite of a “home improvement story.” It’s a home un-improvement story. It’s okay to leave things unfinished. It’s okay to love the flaws and imperfections of homes and people. A life well-lived needs eventually to embrace entropy. Self-improvement has its limits.

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