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

Anyone's who has been up here for any length of time, knows it's too late to order dry and cured firewood.  But everything else is still on the table.

Furnaces - regardless of the age or type - should be maintenanced each year.  The filters should be changed and the calibration and efficiency tested.  The cost savings of a good running furnace can't be understated, plus it's probably creating healthier air as well as prolonging the life of the furnace.

Radiators - for those who own our pre-2013 homes, you might have radiators.  If you do, these should be 'bled', which purges air and allows maximum water capacity and circulation.

Exterior faucet - unhook the hose to prevent freeze-ups that show up inside the home.

Low Heat Alarm - whether it be through one of our alarm systems or one installed post sale, they are a great insurance policy.  And don't neglect the 1-800# call when they phone if you do have a problem.

Turn off the water - when you leave for the weekend, turn off the electrical breaker for the well pump.  Doing this prevents any additional water than what is in the pipes (very little) from entering the home if a freeze up would occur.  This is actually a great thing to do year round, since it would protect against a burst fixture, leak, etc... in any season.

Plow and Sand - don't forget to renew that relationship before the first storm.

Charles Petersheim, founder of Catskill Farms (and writer of this blog, and a ton of letters to the editors) announced the creation of a donor-advised fund that will give back to the communities he works and lives in.  The Petersheim Fund, administered as part of the Greater Pike Foundation, is intended to give to organizations that I respect and play some part in, as well as finding a way to make micro-grants to kids in need of band instruments, sports fees, SAT prep, etc...

Quoting myself, "We've been giving as long as we have been earning. What we are doing with the GPF is organizing that giving a little better, as well as spreading the word a little further.'

See the local news article here - Pike County Courier Petersheim Fund.

Catskill Farms is a 9/11 story, as many of you know.  Working in Soho on the new Scholastic building on Prince, eating breakfast on the 11th floor with a clean shot of the planes hitting the towers, somehow getting a hold of my girlfriend although most cell lines were overloaded, gathering at bars to huddle and think, walking home to Berkeley Place in Brooklyn, where cars and stoops were covered with ash.  Making my way down to help out one day.   Losing my job.  Losing my lease.

Buying a $25k 300 sq ft house without plumbing or heat (or siding, etc…)  ‘upstate’ with a credit card check that arrived in the mail shortly thereafter.  Adopting a stray cat and stray dog, both that got pregnant and having 5 puppies and 7 kittens running around – surely a headline if the SPCA would have caught wind.  No car.

And starting Catskill Farms with no money, shallow experience, no connections, no talented labor supply and hardly a relationship.  With a simple idea that we still work at today – that buying upstate didn’t/doesn’t have to be a compromise, or a 2nd choice, and there was no reason that smart people wouldn’t buy good houses if given the chance.

That was 20 years ago.  And 200 homes. And we remarkably still remain far from perfect, even with our daily effort to keep improving.

Borrowing from Winston Churchill – “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.”

On behalf of my entire team, I would like to thank you each and every one of you who has joined us in this journey.  My biggest regret of this entire thing of ours is that I’m too busy introducing new people the Farm that I don’t get to know better all the amazing people we’ve done business with.  Maybe that’s the next chapter.

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I sign and oversee $1,000,000 of construction projects each month, month after month, year after year.  For 20 years.  Alls sorts of contracts - surveys, septics, construction, sales, purchases, landscaping.  Even with that volume, I've never seen the inside of a courtroom and most disputes and disagreements can be resolved.

Dead tree, week 2.

So my unfortunate entanglement with John Pell Tree Service of Audubon sticks out for it's unusualness if nothing else.  A $60,000 landscape project where most things died within a month of plantings, 3000 sq ft of yard never grew, 200 sq ft of sod looked bad when planted and died soon after.  Weeds grew so resiliently through our new landscape beds and had root balls the size of softballs.   A big tree died, and 12 rosebud trees (or whatever you call them) looked quite distressed very quickly.

So you can imagine my surprise when John Pell said it was my fault.  And that, frankly, he doesn't warranty his work, and never has, and never will.  And by the way, where's the $5k out of $65k that you owe me?

The idea that this was supposed to be the final hurrah of a $500k reconstruction of a community hall, and instead turned into a disappointing - to say the least- dying, weed strewn apocalypse.  Heart-breaking is not too strong a word.

So old Johnny Pell of Pell Tree Service of Phoenixville PA and Audubon PA quickly learned that this isn't our first rodeo with crappy subcontractors and we have a few tools in our tool bag.

So after some kicking and screaming and crying and being just a pompous self-important asshole, John Pell was smart enough to let his capable office staff take over and figure out a compromise, which in the end, consisted of coming back and spending 60 man/hours improving what to any casual observer was a landscape in distress, overgrown with weeds, trees dying.   And they did a great job, and spruced things up, tidied things up, and did right by me.

So I was surprised, but not really, on thursday, after the final check had cleared that I get an email from John Pell of Pell Landscaping and Pell Tree Service telling me that everything I'm doing on the property is wrong, and fuck you, and he won't ever come back on the property, and don't even dare write him back.

Now, remember, I'm happy at this point.  Satisfied at this point.

So, my point in writing this, is construction is tough, and there is always potential for problems. And how you solve those problems define you not just as a business but also as a person.    And d John Pell's 'I'm the smartest, you're a dumbass' approach to stressful problem remediation just makes me shout 'STAY AWAY FROM THIS GUY'.   There are so many other options of people who actually respect their clients, respect their concerns, and respect their goals and even their fears.

I cannot say loud enough that this guy does not deserve your business.  Every single thing he touched was dying or never grew.



Dead Sod, week 3.

Weeds, weeds, weeds.

Rosebud trees that look beyond sickly.  Week 4.

Grass that never grew a blade.