Kitten in the Tree
We heard the faint meowing off in the woods, did a quick check in the house to see which cat was there, and then set off to follow the noise. Seeming this was my only day off and seeming like I have been through plenty of animal injury issues with Lisa, I was immediately hoping this was not going to entail the 50 minute drive to the Middletown Emergency animal hospital.
Well, there was no injury, but there was a cat stuck up the tree about 40' high - very far up there with no way down - lots of pathetic crying, I mean, whose fault is it, really? Anyway, I ran to get my camera and heard Lisa screaming in the background 'not everything is a blog post!" That really cracked me up -although in the end I disagree with her.
Here's good old Ruby of prior post fame stuck way on up in a tree.
That's a crazy picture above with super leaf green eyes. The camera zoom makes it appear like the cat is not so high, but that's very deceptive. So what does a builder do in this situation? You probably say 'get a ladder', and that would be totally correct except I don't own a ladder.
Poor Ruby, balancing on a small branch. Best yet, it started to rain. So I don't have a ladder, my main man Juan is in Connecticut, and so Lisa calls up a friend Darryl who owns a small gentleman's farm in Cochecton, and he very kindly came over with his 24' ladder. Problem is, Ruby was 40' in the air.
So Darryl, against my better judgment and wishes, climbed to the top of the ladder and then scaled up another 10' up the tree on branches only 2" thick. So he makes it up there, grabs the cat, I scurry up the ladder, he hands the pine-tree sticky cat off to me, I do the -behind-the-neck cat paralysis move and descend quickly with Darryl right behind me.
Here's our hero in the tree, waving to the breathless crowd (me and Lisa).
This is a true country pic, - with pregnant lisa fighting back tears, our Hero of the story Darryl and the ladder that is twice as big as his truck.
The embarrassing part of the tale is everytime Dr. Darryl asked for something I didn't have it - rope, bag, screw-driver, chainsaw.
Since half my life is about insurance, I immediately ran a few scenarios through my head - whose responsibility and liability would it have been if Darryl wasn't as skilled in tree climbing as he lead us to believe? I don't own the house so it's not my homeowners policy, it wasn't at work so it's the not MY CRAZY EXPENSIVE LIABILITY INSURANCE POLICY, so it must have been the leasor's ultimate responsibility. Who knows? No harm, no foul.
Played golf with my insurance broker over the weekend and he's a big blog follower and since he makes it a habit of separating me from my money, he says he regularly checks the blog with hesitant tepidation, wondering if he's been profiled. He hasn't been, but he should - especially after selling me a construction liability policy that forced me to make a decision between toning down the blog (no more calling bad companies out by name) or excluding the part of the policy that protects me against inadvertent libel with my advertising.
I chose to exclude the coverage - Long live the 1st amendment.
The Bird That Stands Out Gets Shot
It's funny how many good sayings don't really have any punch until you find yourself in a situation where the apt saying applies. This ancient Chinese ('the bird that stands out...) saying is making more and more sense to us as a company, and me personally, as we really are beginning to stand out from the crowd - historical housing crisis on one hand while Catskill Farms has a 14 month waiting list and has stopped actively marketing for new homeowners. I do have to give a little mea culpa to this Sullivan County. I used to be flabbergastedly annoyed and irritated by the lack of skilled and motivated and reliable labor in the area - I still am, but now have an idea the problem is not isolated to this area, but is a problem for anyone trying to grow a business or finish a home improvement problem. For us as a company that is building a lot of homes, our labor supply is always our most tenuous and uncertain variable- has enabled us to excel when we are firing on all cylinders, and letting a lot of people down when we lose part of our team. Recently, an extraordinary situation is occuring where some local yokal carpenters who parted ways with my company are actively soliciting work from the families I introduced them to - this is probably the most disrespectful, screw you action an ex-employee can take (the fact that some homeowners are hiring them is a different topic altogether). But mostly, it's short-sighted, since any carpenter starting his own business would be better off synergizing their new venture with Catskill Farms, instead of competing with it. If there is one thing I know how to do, it's compete - in price, in product, in quality, in service. Probably the inclination of local vendors to 'spite their nose right off of their faces' (thank you John Prine) is the hardest thing to get used to up here. The other admission is a bit of resentment due to what Jim Hughson said 'was a true local disdain for any sort of success. The better you do, the more people are looking to do you harm." Well, same thing, I have found this is not a reflex special to this county, or even to the struggling socio-economic group one would think mostly likely to resent a little success. So it does seem the bird that stands out gets shot at, not necessarily hit, but targeted. Architects selling our intellectual property, associates funding our competition, real estate companies copying our strategies, builders stealing our business plans and designs. At one point, it was all the rage to convince out of town money to buy 20-30 acres, subdivide it, build a few of these new old farmhouses, and count the money all the way to the bank. Trouble is, it didn't work out so cleanly - 3 imitation 'brand new farmhouses' outside Jeffersonville have been for sale for 2 + years, threatening the financial health of the Jersey builder. 3 other 'brand new farmhouses' outside Callicoon NY have bankrupted the builder, and now threatens to seriously harm the viability of a local hard money lender who contributed the financing. In this particular case, many of the subcontractors were never paid because of some fancy legal footwork, so not only are the houses not sold, but dozens of local vendors got stiffed. I guess the point is not the increased launching of slings and arrows occurs, but rather the understanding and acceptance that this is what happens to the bird that stands out. Local angry realtors posting blogs posts under our names, marketing and development companies taking pages right out of our playbook, ex-employees taking the easy road by going door to door to our customers- the trouble with these efforts is simply that our homeowners get the idea that Catskill Farms is an original design/build company providing neat homes - all the rest are just imitators, some good, some bad, but imitators nevertheless - and the original is always more valuable. Now with the economy slowing as we are expanding our business means we have access to better labor than before because some of the more publicized developments in the area are giving up their 3+ year efforts at selling some land, most with an alarming lack of success. I guess smart money doesn't guarantee good ROI. Anyway, in an area with a lack of professional expertise we are able to pick up a project manager here, a new framing crew there, etc... I think I have even found a good assistant so after 34 homes I don't need to personally make every damn call and answer every phone call that comes in. Catskill Farms has sold around 30 homes, and build/restored another 10 for homeowners - probably for a total investment value of $15m+ in this local community - and we didn't have shit for office staff - only a bookkeeper and me. This cheapness and lack of overhead probably is the biggest reason we are still in businesss but the crushing workload probably prevented us from delivering the superior post-sale relationship we would have liked to. It's a difficult proposition to wear such varied hats - addressing a faucet leak one minute, financing a $1m project the next minute, arguing with a subcontractor over $45 dollars one minute, spending 1 hour on hold with Verizon in order to upgrade my cell phone the next minute, selling a home the next. Upon reflection, it's interesting on how we achieved our small measure of success - it wasn't by executing a large 10 yr vision of 45 homes, it wasn't by building an overhead infrastructure to handle 'all the business' in our future, and it most surely wasn't by expecting to be a market leader - it appears that by single-mindedly focusing on each and every home, when we lifted up our heads to catch our breath after a couple of years, there we were, on top of the heap. Remarkably, we weren't even close to being perfect in our execution, I guess we were just better than others. A most unexpected pleasant surprise. And now we hope to enter the marketplace in New Paltz, Woodstock, Rhineback and Red Hook (no calls yet, please). Well, there's my ramble for this Sunday Morning, for whatever it is worth. Lisa just screamed out 'there's an ant on my toothbrush!', her final words before heading out to her weekly trek to the Callicoon Farmers' Market to pick up our fresh organic local meat and veggies we need for the week.
Green Building
Green, of course, has a lot legs these days. What magazine hasn't focused, highlighted, spotlighted, dissected and discussed green building, green products and a general green mentality? What is denied though, over and over, and with a straight face, is the fact that green means green (dinero, that is). Implementing green technologies throughout a house will raise the cost of that house 10-20%+, which is a lot of money. For a $300k house, that's over $30k. Now, I don't what's in the wallet of my clients, but I can assure you many of them do not have an extra $30k+ just laying around waiting to be used for some global cause. That's a lot of cashola. Since having some fancy green technology in a home doesn't affect it's appraised value, this $30k is pure cash, no financing. By accident, Catskill Farms is a leader in the green field, and all of our customers are beneficiaries. We build small and modest homes - even our big homes are only 1700 sq ft, 25% smaller than the size of the average american abode. Be as green as you want, if you build big the impact of the home's footprint begins the green race too far behind to ever catch up. There is nothing greener than limiting the size of a home - less devastation on the immediate building site, less fuels needed to heat and cool, less materials needed to build meaning many things among them less waste to the landfill, etc.... By being modest in our footprint and size requirements, our clients have made an conscious/unconscious choice to lead the green movement. Truth be told, being green means a few required major efforts and then a lot optional fringe benefits. 1. Build small. 2. Insulate the heck out the house. 3. Seal up small penetrations that can be overlooked during the course of construction 4. Use an electronic heat thermostat set to lower heat when you are not home. 5. Use florescent bulbs. They are simple items, and the only with a sizable price tag is #2, where foam spray-in insulation is without a doubt better than the traditional batt insulation, at about double the cost. What I consistently found was my clients weren't focused on all the green hype, mostly because the cost was high and the payback was long. That whole equation has changed now that oil has doubled again. If higher cost insulation was paid back in savings over 6 years when oil was $40 a barrel, now the payback is 2 years, and the savings are from thereafter. Now, that is something people can understand. That's real money - even an investment. Geothermal and solar panels are also avenues to explore, and although their expense can easily reach $40k, the payback is no longer 15 years, but can now reach as few as 5 years once the government tax incentives are factored in. As with any super hyped product, it's easy to buy something that has no real value other than the feel-good aspect of the product - however, with energy costs skyrocketing past any expected benchmark, the ROI (return on investment) is rapidly increasing.
Cottage 8
Cottage 8 is just turning the corner for the final stretch. All the sheetrock has been hung and finished, all the wood plank ceilings have been installed, the wood plank accent walls, the wide plank floors, the cedar bath on the ground floor. All we got to do is 'trim her out' and then she's ready for paint.
Here's a pic looking up into the loft, with the wood ceilings before they are painted white.
Large rough sawn steps with open stringers leading up to the loft, and one of our signature hand hewn barn posts holding the house up.
The Owners have been experimented with materials and choices that we haven't used before so it's been interesting to see the result. For instance this chimney and foundation was covered with 'shale', creating a layered layed up stone look.
And from the loft, looking out into the living room below. I always like the way the sheetrock looks after it's polished but before it is painted.
And a taste of what this fancy little mini-house is going to look like upon completion. Green roof, cedar shake siding, shale stone on the foundation and front and back porches.
Pretty darn perfect country living in Yulan NY, just 3 miles from the Delaware River.
