Spring home improvement 2017 composite esub by Ulster Publishing

Home HudsonValley MARCH 30, 2017 • ULSTER PUBLISHING • WWW.HOMEHUDSONVALLEY.COM

Spring Home Improvement

Looking outside

Plenty to do around the home and garden

30, 2017 2 | March Home Hudson Valley

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Steadying touches This may be your year for home improvement By Paul Smart

ome improvement may be more important this year. Think of all those stories that have been filling online news feeds about Hotel Chic and Dictator styles, where gaudiness and gold leaf have become the defacto dream of homeowners faced with larger and larger television screens dominating every room. Those trends have little to do with home improvement in the Hudson Valley, where vernacular legacies from Dutch, Huguenot, Yankee and other heritages have mingled with baronial aspirations and exurban dreams for generations. Catskills and Hudson Valley town homes have become the backdrop for an endless array of film and photo shoots these days. Could the region go the way of the Hamptons, the Berkshires and the Adirondacks and become stylish? It’s not impossible. Newly arrived homeowners from Brooklyn have already started reconfiguring what had been a swath of forgotten urban landscapes. Loft living has migrated here from Gotham. People are flocking for short-term rental vacations to resort-like hospitality situations. For every major-brand hotel built near the local malls, there are several reviving boarding houses, quaint accessory cottages, stately old village homes, and even retro-revived motels and trailers. They’re all getting booked with regularity. In most cases, local architects, not outside global names, are get-

Our contributors to this issue include: Pamela Cederquist is a veteran Hollywood screenwriter and assistant director with Woodstock roots who is now establishing a home in Catskill. Pia Davis is the author of several travel books, some with her husband, James Lasdun, and a fierce mother bear herself. Elisabeth Henry, a writer and an actress who lives in Hunter with her husband, where they raised their children, has written for many local and regional newspapers and magazines. Anne Hutton’s work has appeared in the Catskill Mountain Region Guide, Hudson Valley Magazine, Kaatskill Life Magazine, Green Door Magazine, as well as Ulster Publishing’s community weeklies. Jodi LaMarco is a writer for various print and web publications in and around the Hudson Valley. Harry Matthews, who lives on an old farm on the Kaaterskill creek outside of Palenville with his partner Catherine and their three cats, can most often be found in the woods building things, gardening, or plucking his tenor guitar on the porch of his cabin by the creek. Reginald Oberlag is a writer-broker living the dream of combining his East Village and Catskills lifestyles. Fawn Potash is a Greene County-based gardener and artist who is married to this issue’s editor, Paul Smart. Paul Smart, a writer and editor for Ulster Publishing for two decades, has edited a number of other regional weekly and biweekly newspapers. Kim Truitt is originally from the South and a NY state resident for over twenty years. She is a former poet and bartender and current mother of two Onteora students, as well as a student and teacher of yoga who’s currently learning Tibetan medicine. Violet Snow, a journalist, author and frequent Ulster Publishing presence, specializes in history, genealogy, suspense fiction and nature, and also expresses herself through photography, video and music. Terence Ward is a journalist, religious writer, homeowner, husband, student of money, and servant to a startling number of cats.

PUBLIC DOMAIN PHOTO

It’s time to be getting to those long lists of home-improvement projects we’ve been making all winter, or saving from previous years. It’s also a chance to spend long hours enjoying the great outdoors once again. ting the local jobs. There remains something unique about the way things always end up looking here, inside and out. There are art rooms. Books (remember them?) find a key place in many decoration plans. Places look lived in, as though they had been home to kids and rowdy animals, which they were. Gardens are more often natural than formal. The woods get welcomed in, not shunted away. One of the stories in this issue is about a friend’s home I tried visiting last summer, having forgotten that it was in the midst of a major renovation. I found the house several feet in the air, with no visible means of entry. Ah, I was told, that was because flood waters rise regularly in these parts.

Another story starts about home improvement lists. but gets detoured into tips we all must remember when we run into another seeming constant of our regional existence, mice. We have ideas for all that’s involved in building fresh, or in buying older houses. What we must pay attention to when hiring help, or requesting chores from our progeny. What makes up an individual’s own sense of style? At what point do we start gardening for the upcoming season? When will we tire of endless renovation? Hopefully, the last of the March snow will be gone by the time you’re reading what we’ve put together. We hope it proves helpful. At this time of year we all need support and encouragement.

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Our renovations Making a house into a home takes time By Kimberly Truitt

f I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t buy an old house. That’s my advice. Buy a newish one. Living in a work-in-progress is not so easy, especially if you’re not the handy type. It’s like owning a beautiful jalopy when you’re not mechanical. With renovations, you can expect to have your expectations challenged because houses, like everything else in life (cars, relationships, financial security), are fluid. We periodically need to consider (and reconsider) that which no longer serves us, like the door to nowhere, the tiny kitchen, and the walls that at one time seemed self-evidently useful and later proved obtrusive. This is the work of owning a house, especially if it is old. Some things cannot be approached in a more direct way. Early on, a contractor told us that “you don’t know what a house needs until you’ve lived in it.” We were silly enough to accept this maxim at face value. We had a general understanding of changes that needed to be made, but no clarity as to how they should happen (also no immediate stockpiles of cash). We were also clear on the many advantages of the property, such as its proximity to Cooper Lake, which meant endless engagement with nature. All things considered, including time as a motivating factor (our rental was over), we decided to move into our fixer-upper. The entire upstairs was wallpapered. Everything. The ceilings, even light fixtures, had to be peeled back from reams of floral print. I happened to get stomach flu right after the move, and spent the better part of a week in my bed staring sickly at the red and blue flowers on the ceiling. After that, I couldn’t look at it again without sickly recall. It was the first to come down. Then we had to repair plaster whose gaps and cracks had been hidden, and prime and paint all of the upstairs: bathroom, hall, three bedrooms. Our house, built by a portrait painter in the For-

SAM TRUITT

It’s thrilling to ﬁnd a home to match your dreams, even if both the home and dreams need some adjustment. But there’s a limit as to how long one can stand being “in process.” ties with enormous north-facing “Woodstock windows” popular with local artists at that time (we were told by both the agent and relatives of the previous owner). About half of the home’s 1500 square feet is taken up by that room. There was a small, tired old kitchen with appliances and countertops from the seventies, and dinky upstairs rooms with slim closets. Some storage in the attic and remnants of previous lives still remained up there until very recently. There was a lot to do to make the house useable for a family of four with two adults who like to work from home.

dead-ending right into it. A cold room off the tiny kitchen was separated by a door, which acted more as a walk through leading to a screened porch. We briefly used it as a playroom for the kids, but it was too dreary even for that. We replaced the useless giant bay window with a new front door, phasing out the old front door which opened from a side of the house opposite the driveway, turning the space into a foyer. Since we didn’t enjoy the blast of cold air from outside every time someone opened it, the old front door remained locked.

Spring Home Improvement

he attached garage wasn’t a garage any more. The previous owners had semirenovated it with carpet over concrete, a closet with toilet and sink inside, a bay window where the garage door used to be, and the asphalt

March 2017 An Ulster Publishing publication Editorial WRITERS: Pamela Cederquist, Pia Davis, Elisabeth Henry, Anne Hutton, Jodi LaMarco, Harry Matthews, Reginald Oberlag, Fawn Potash, Paul Smart, Kim Truitt, Violet Snow, Terence Ward PHOTOGRAPHERS: Alice Malloy, Dion Ogust, Fawn Potash, Violet Snow, Sam Truitt, and various public-domain artists This issue’s cover was amalgamated by Joe Morgan, who utilized a variety of found images. EDITOR: Paul Smart LAYOUT: Joe Morgan

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Geddy Sveikauskas ADVERTISING DIRECTOR: Genia Wickwire DISPLAY ADS: Lynn Coraza, Pam Courselle, Pamela Geskie, Elizabeth Jackson, Ralph Longendyke, Sue Rogers, Linda Saccoman PRODUCTION MANAGER: Joe Morgan PRODUCTION: Diane Congello-Brandes, Josh Gilligan, Rick Holland CLASSIFIED ADS: Amy Murphy, Tobi Watson CIRCULATION: Dominic Labate Spring Home Improvement is one of three Home Hudson Valley supplements Ulster Publishing puts out each year. It is distributed in the company’s four weekly newspapers and separately at select locations, reaching an estimated readership of over 50,000. Its website is www.hudsonvalleyone.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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the right to life if he ever were to smoke in the house, it was a clear necessity that he have separate workspace, which we provided to the great happiness of all. This came to pass with the adoption of a preexisting tool shed that was already wired for electric. A little bit of paint and the space suited him for several years, until he took over my workspace after we built another.

still need a new kitchen. And my good friend Dean, a gardener, still needs to do his magic on our yard. Here’s is a list of the changes we did make: The house was drowning in pine trees. Some were diseased and needed to come down. A stranger walking down the road past our house once challenged us as to “why we were cutting down the trees.” Though we were annoyed by the intrusiveness of the question, our explanation satisfied her. We built a privacy fence to shield ourselves from nosy passersby. We built a studio to get Sam out of the tool shed. We built a studio space for me because I subscribe to Virginia Woolf ’s notion that “a woman is to have money and a room of her own if she is to write” anything. We increased the size of my daughter’s bedroom (which was no bigger than a closet with room only for a bed and a desk) by going into the attic and making a loft. We installed new windows throughout. We blew insulation throughout. We installed a new septic system. We removed vinyl floor in kitchen and repaired the existing wood floor. We rebuilt railing on the deck.

SAM TRUITT

The key to making a house shine is working with its inherent character. The trick to staying sane is knowing when enough's enough. We put a front porch over the new door and broke up the asphalt, replacing it with a bluestone walk from the (now) car park (no more garage). The cars suffer the snow and ice just like everyone else). The ugly carpet was replaced with tile, and we built a coat closet. The doorway to the kitchen was expanded for better flow, and we put new windows on the screened porch, which faces south and brings in the most light. We kept the strange closet-bathroom but rebuilt the walls to include

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made disastrous mistakes with nail polish, laundry, irons, and later with cars. Looking back, what can I tell parents in the throes of wrestling youngsters into something like routinized, reliable, responsible pitching in?

The hired help?

e patient, start early and start small. Include the child in basic tidiness habits. Without preaching, the child intuits that these efforts are part of being in a family. A twoyear-old can toss paper plates in the trash. When the necessary height requirement has been attained, teach them to turn off lights that are not needed. Very little kids feel important doing ordinary household tasks. Eventually, with luck, you can let the kite string go and the child might just clear the table, stack the dishwasher, take out the garbage, sweep the floor, etc. unasked. All the while, remind the child to see to his or her personal orderliness, and to take pride in it. These are the golden years. The post-toddler/ pre-tween years. I noticed with envy when I was raising children that mothers of children in third grade became glamorous again. Their children were reading on their own! I imagined their children made their own peanut-butter sandwiches, knew their own homework assignments, dressed themselves during snowstorms. I also noticed a change in the women when their children turned 13 (for boys) and eleven and a half (for girls.) The mothers may have remained stylish and put together, but they had an edge. That’s because they faced the dragon at home. As did I. None of the aforementioned good advice about instilling a work ethic in children applies to teenagers. If you must scream (and you probably will feel the need), scream alone in the car on long drives. Don’t let them see you crack. Move on. Forget everything I wrote, see to your blood pressure and digestive health, and look to the outside world to hire.

I PHOTO FROM PUBLIC DOMAIN

Some home-repair jobs, such as peeling off hideous old wallpaper, look easy. But then you’ve got to rent equipment, purchase tools, and actually get the work on the list done. And that’s the easiest item on your list.

If you want the job done, ask a lot of questions By Elisabeth Henry

am not a lawyer. This means I was not able to threaten my children with jail time or a lawsuit if they did not complete their chores. This also means that any advice I give here falls far short of the information required before one engages the services of say, anybody, to rake the lawn. My best advice is to seek out legal advice before you actually hire. Can one’s own children be counted upon to do chores? It is futile and cruel just to tell kids to do the work. They know you’re pawning tasks off on them. Know what they like to do. Little kids usually like anything that keeps the legs going. This explains the popularity of that ancient avenue of enterprise, the paper route. One more casualty of modern life.

One can instill a sense of purpose in tasks right there on the homestead. The key is to assign ownership of the results. A nicely mowed lawn, a loamy heap of black compost, swept stairs, stacked wood. All of this can be done by children at about age ten. Buy a push-mower, the kind with no motor. Praise the results. It helps if you put a little money behind it. My children all know how to tape, bin, paint, lay brick, lay stone, lay tile. They also know how to handle, feed and water horses, sheep, pigs, chickens, rabbits and dogs. The boys can run heavy equipment, power tools and chain saws. They can change the tires on their cars, and the oil, too. Despite this, the boys littered the floor with underwear, failed to aim at the bowl nor notice the evidence of that, routinely left food encrusted plates beneath the bed, and were so bad at washing dishes that they were in fact forbidden from taking that on. The girls were not so messy, but retched at garbage and compost tasks, as well as bathroom cleaning chores and wasted food. They

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f you need someone to do routine lawn care or to help in the home, word-of mouth is the best way to find a reliable person. Always ask for references, and get those in writing. I live in the middle of the woods, and despite my large dogs I want to be sure the person outside trimming the wisteria isn’t an assassin, wanted for the murder of a leftist presidential candidate in Ecuador. Just sayin’. If your work project requires more than a rake or a mower, you may need to storyboard it. Determine the scope of the work. Once you know the scope of the work, you can begin to search for workers. Put the work out for bids. Get at least three. Ask for references. Ask for copies of previous contracts. Ask to see examples of finished work. Know what work requires a licensed worker and make sure you see and get copies of all necessary licenses of the people bidding the job. If the work will cost more than 10K, you may need an architect’s plans and an engineer’s plans. Requirements vary from one building department to another. If the scope of the work entails a cost of more than 10K, get a lawyer to go over the contract once you have selected the workmen. Before signing, discuss price versus time and material with the contractor. Beware of extras. Determine now, at the point of signing, how extras will be handled. There are many reasons for this. One is that what you think is an extra is actually an essential that the contractor failed to bring to your attention. Another is that the extra you want requires that the job be refiled. Which means more time and more money. Get it in your contract when the work will begin, and when it will be finished. Your contractor should handle filing the job with your local building department. Get that in writing, as part of the contract. He or she must also get all approvals. Make sure you get copies of (continued on page 11)

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PHOTO FROM PUBLIC DOMAIN

all of this. Negotiate payment as you go. Some contractors require a third of the money upfront, a third when the job is half done, and the remaining third at its completion. You can discuss what works best for you. Don’t pay in full upfront. Make sure that all material has been paid for before you finally conclude payments. Get copies of those paid bills. If it’s a big job, ask for a performance bond. If the work doesn’t get done, you will be remunerated. Demand to see proof of workmen’s compensation insurance on each worker, and liability insurance with you named as additionally insured. This includes all subcontractors. Make sure the warranty is in the contract, and have a ten percent retention for at least six months.

roof to remove snow while you yell “Stay on the purlings! Stay on the purlings.” But he doesn’t. And he falls through the roof, redeemed only by the scope of his girth, which keeps him stuck like a cork until rescued. Don’t be stupid. Be afraid. And insured. If all this makes you throw up your hands and inspires you to attempt the work yourself, a note of caution. Contractors love this line of logic. Especially when it involves plumbing or electrical work. It almost always guarantees a bigger job, which means more money when you make a monumental mess of things. Comfort yourself with

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now this. You cannot legally hire anyone without determining if they are independent contractors or your employee. A mere bag-o-shells, you may snicker. It’s just a porch rail to be painted! And then you go ahead and hire. And then you might get sued. How? People are stupid, that’s how. You’re stupid for not covering yourself and Arlis is stupid for stepping right onto that rotted plank on your porch to sweep away the cobwebs of the spiders that scare him. Or he steps on a rake and knocks out his teeth. Or he cowboys his riding mower on that hill and tips it over and breaks his clavicle. Or he drops a tree on himself. Or he nail-guns his thumb. Or he climbs up on the

lighter tasks, like painting. I once resolved to paint wooden kitchen chairs with beautiful stencils. I purchased paint. One color was a dusty lavender, the other a cool, foam green. I returned home one Sunday after a long visit to my mother, who lived in another state. The chairs were painted already. “See, mommy!” said my five-year old boy. “I did your work for you!” Each chair was painted half lavender, half green. Straight down the middle. He was so proud. I have kept those chairs just that way. Don’t even try to put a price on initiative like that.

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I’m not complaining What I wish I had known about renovation By Violet Snow

’m a writer, and I’m married to a poet. Neither of us had ever owned property until 2003, when we bought a dignified double-wide trailer across the street from the Esopus Creek. Neither of us had ever embarked on a renovation project until we got a grant to raise up our house in order to keep the creek from wreaking havoc with our garage and crawlspace the next time there’s a flood like the ones in 2005 and 2011. I’m distinguishing here between renovation and repair. In 2011, we learned a lot about repair. I’m here to report what I have now learned about renovation. Mind you, I’m not complaining. We hired a talented designer, a crackerjack house-lifter and a superb builder, all of whom did beautiful work. I would recommend any of them in a heartbeat. However, the process has not been altogether smooth. There are things I wish I had known. For instance, when you are going to have work done on your house, you need a project manager. Unless you are wealthy, the project manager will be you, whether you know it or not. Since you have never been a project manager before, you do not know what you are doing. Consider the “plans” — once known as blueprints, before the days of computerized design — which will be full of information for the designer and builder but will probably be incomprehensible to you. Therefore, you have to ask questions. I recommend asking the question, “How wide will the new deck be?” It’s probably written somewhere on the plans, but I didn’t realize until the deck was actually standing, and I was standing next to it, that it was almost twice as wide as my old, flood-damaged deck, which had a vegetable garden right alongside. Okay, I’ll find another place for the garden, but still, I wouldn’t have widened the deck that much if I’d known, or bothered to measure, what I was getting into. One of the project manager’s responsibilities is scheduling, which is a herding-cats type of process, given the need to coordinate among the various contractors and the workers who will be doing the construction. They all have other clients, and the odds that all their previous clients’ jobs will finish just at the moment you are ready to start your own project is approximately zero percent. And yet, you have naïvely assumed you will be able to schedule a start date and make plans to move out of your house. Moving out, in this case, includes getting help to transfer 400 storage boxes from the garage to the house. Since you’d rather not live with 400 dusty boxes lining the walls of your bedrooms, kitchen and living room, you’re probably trying to figure out when construction is going to begin. Good luck. Here’s a tip. Don’t trust your contractors to communicate with each other about the start date. They are in the construction business, not the communications business. Not that you can pin them down yourself. So you will just have to go with the flow. Lower your expectations, build an extra month or two of rent into your budget, and move out of your house with fingers crossed. (Be prepared to throw sheets over the boxes and live with them for a couple months after you move back in, while the garage and deck are being fin-

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peaking of scheduling, when the builder says the project may take two or three months, he or she is talking about the amount of physical work that has to be done. The actual time span is likely to be at least double that estimate, given such variables as competing projects, weather, unavailability of materials, and coordination with electricians, plumbers, masons, garage door installers, all of whom have their own lives, believe it or not. Patience is both a virtue and a necessity. Brush up on your Spanish. Even if the carpenters speak impeccable English, they will appreciate your linguistic efforts, and if you are living in the house during any part of the construction period you will want to bond with the guys working right outside your windows. Otherwise, it feels a little weird. They are generally nice, hard-working fellows who deserve your respect. Not to be sexist, but the people working on your house will most likely be male. That’s how it is in 2017. If you happen to locate a female electrician, count yourself lucky. She will sweeten the pot. It’s probably been a few years since you bought lumber, so you may not know about the bar-code tags. These are little black, white and (in our case)

orange bits of plasticized paper that are stapled to the end of every single board, post and baluster (I love that word!) that goes into your deck and staircases. You do not want your carpenters to occupy themselves in removing these little tags, since you are paying by the hour, and you want your project to be completed in a timely fashion. Be prepared to wander through your yard every day for several weeks after construction is finished picking these tags out of the mud, along with fragments of styrofoam, wood, masonry, insulation, metal and other materials scattered across the ground. And when you have everything cleaned up, expect more stuff to float to the surface when it rains.

s I said, I’m not complaining. I like having an outdoor job to do in late winter, when gardening is not yet an option. I like moving planks that the crew couldn’t clean up because the wood was frozen to the ground when they were finishing up work. Now that the yard has thawed out, I have enjoyed wrestling huge masonry blocks into position and laying a plank across them to create a bench looking out over the stream. All sorts of new possibilities have appeared. Your renovation project will probably come out great, too. I hope these little warnings will make it a bit less stressful for you.

March 30, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 13

might bolster consumer confidence, it’s the building inspector who makes sure the work is up to snuff. The procedures for obtaining and closing building permits are one area that homeowners should familiarize themselves with, in Spaun’s opinion. While most contractors will fill out all the paperwork and pay for the permits as part of the job, knowing what’s expected by municipal officials can smooth the process along the way. Many building inspectors will explain the required steps over the phone.

PHOTOS FROM PUBLIC DOMAIN

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Insist on details Why estimates for renovations are a must for contractors and customers alike By Terence P Ward

ritten estimates are an essential tool in deciding which company to hire for home improvement, and to ensure that the work comes out on schedule and as expected. I recently talked to a contractor and a lawyer for a construction law firm about some of the pitfalls involved. According to Robb Magee, owner-operator of Building Friends Construction in Clintondale, an estimate should always include the scope of work. That’s because it’s not possible to compare the prices quoted by different contractors without it. Don’t just choose the low number. Without the scope detailed, it won’t be clear whether a big difference in price comes from a smaller profit margin or shoddier materials, for example. The more detail, the better. To identify whether a particular contractor will produce the desired result, you need the numbers. Magee said that he always either lays out exactly how much will be spent on materials, or he specifies the exact models to be installed. In the latter case, it’s easy enough to produce receipts to show what was actually obtained. To illustrate his point, Magee provided an estimate he had written for a client. In that example, he listed the areas of the home to be worked on and then provided a lengthy narrative for each that included such details as “install (2) 8” x 8” pine posts, planed, with stop chambers, on kitchen side of stairwell matching the opposite side existing posts.” Gregory Spaun, an attorney with the construction law firm Welby, Brady & Greenblatt, LLP, agrees. “The gold standard [for an estimate] is that it’s well-defined and specific about the work, so that the homeowner is clear what’s included.” Including a detailed scope of work, he said, means that “an argument can’t be made later about what was included.” Insurance is one of the costs Spaun believes should always be included. The policy carried by any reputable contractor will cover injuries to employees. Unless the homeowner is named as an additional insured, however, that won’t prevent those employees from suing the client directly. Spaun thinks offering to pay the cost of being named, which is often nominal, is “well worth the

peace of mind.” “When you buy a car, you know what features are included,” Magee said. “Most clients and contractors don’t ever reach that level of clarity, and it creates problems.” An estimate in writing can be the basis for a written contract, the existence of which preserves the right of the contractor to sue the homeowner for non-payment. While oral contracts are binding, Spaun said, state law specifically precludes any such lawsuit if the contract isn’t in writing. Moreover, in Westchester and south, contractors who aren’t licensed to do the work cannot sue at all. Licensing is a tricky subject in this region, because a patchwork of requirements are in effect in various municipalities. Spaun pointed out that it’s up to local building inspectors to ensure that the inconsistent rules don’t lead to what he termed a Wild-West environment. Building permits cannot be closed out without appropriate inspections, which ensures that the work done complies with building codes and won’t leave the homeowner living in dangerous conditions. While the mosaic of local license stickers on a contractor’s truck

ayment issues can cut both ways. Spaun cautioned against a payment scheme that leaves the homeowner holding the bag. His advice: Don’t finish paying before the work is complete. “Always hold something back,” the attorney said. “It’s common for contractors to ask for half down and half at the halfway mark. Don’t do it.” He’s seen many cases of fly-by-night contractors vanishing after the final payment is received. Consider withholding a sum until the punch list (mistakes that must be corrected to conform to the scope of work) is completed. Homeowners should understand that estimates are equally binding on them, Spaun noted. If the work cannot be completed as specified through no fault of the contractor, or if a client changes his or her mind halfway through, the new criteria should be laid out in a written change order. What those differences will make in terms of cost and time for completion need to be specified. “If the homeowner asks for a single slop sink, and then decides that they’d rather have a double sink instead, there should be a change order.” The same holds true if workers discover that that, for example, the wiring or plumbing can’t be put in as agreed upon due to hidden issues in the inner workings of the house, such as a hidden vent. “Most of us lack the sophistication to understand the impacts of what we’re asking for,” he said. The change order puts it in black and white, making an informed decision easier. It’s not always possible, however, for a contractor to know what problems might arise without putting holes in walls ahead of time. Change orders, as with absolutely every detail of a home renovation, are negotiable. Spaun advises walking away from a contractor who is unwilling to negotiate. Another one likely will be. In any case, a written estimate is the homeowner’s first protection against a “vague or changing agreement,” said Spaun. In addition to the reasons already laid out, agreeing to the work in writing triggers the state’s three-day rescission rule, which allows for the homeowner to back out of a deal during that time, no harm, no foul. “Most contractors can’t get started the next day, anyway,” Spaun said, as they are typically finishing other jobs or must obtain materials. The right to rescission is just one more reason why insistence on an oral agreement should be a red flag for anything beyond the most minor of repair work.

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Building your own home Some continue to want to follow the dream By Reginald Oberlag

here is something essential and primordial about creating our own dwelling place. Whether it was making a cave into a home by scrawling hunting murals on the stone walls, or weaving a wigwam womb, or even going nomad in a tepee or yurt, creating shelter is one of our strongest and truly primeval instincts. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d even claim there is something sexy, too, that drives us to seek romance in the challenges of new construction. The desire to actually build your own home strikes some more strongly than others. Some may be happy to just decorate cookie-cutter tract housing with granite counters and subway-tile bathrooms. Others may ind it enough to inhabit anonymous apartment complexes stuffed with the biggest lat-screen TVs, sprawling sectional sofas and California-King beds they can cram through the door. But the urge carefully to plan and to execute the fabrication of your own vision of home can be a marvelous though perilous journey, one that adventurous and intrepid individuals still strive to accomplish. It is a creative impulse that should not be the privilege of only the wealthy. However, it must be admitted that the wildly escalating costs of new-home building is pushing this dream out of reach for most of us. We must get really creative or go tiny.

The fantasy of designing and building your own home is addictive. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m an addict. Some people, including me, get obsessed by dreams of an ideal habitat that ful ills our fantasies. Folks less sympathetic to this obsession see all our shelves of home and garden books and piles of glossy magazines like Dwell, Fine Homebuilding or Architectural Digest and roll their eyes. They regard our bookmarking of hip websites like TheCoolHunter, Architecturebeast, Weburbanist and TinyHouseBuild as the equivalent of porn. We share Pinterest clip-art collections of our favorite houses with fellow addicts. Thereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s even a popular picture book recently published actually entitled â&#x20AC;&#x153;Cabin Porn.â&#x20AC;? We salivate over a sleek glass wedge house. We get hot for the curvy cool shape of a Gehry-style snakeskin of copper shingles siding our dream abode. We adore the grooved texture of aged barnboard. The patina of rust on steel plate turns us on. Corrugated sheet metal evokes the rippling sixpack gut muscles on the hottest Hollywood hunk. Sensual inishes and arousing ixtures beguile us. Ahhh, the sweet and tangy smell of sawdust in the morning amid the shrill screaming of the skillsaw and the banging of hammer strikes. Build it and they will come.

hen we were designing our country dream house, I remember lying awake at night and moving through the imaginary rooms, visualizing the spaces and where windows and views would be best. In my mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye I was obsessing on the perfect height for all the fenestration. No disruptive window frame would be allowed to interfere with that spectacular view. I would have an alluring vista of the shimmering

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pond with the blue mountain landscapeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s undulating ridgelines layering the horizon behind it. It was a creative thrill to imagine these spaces and then awaken in the morning and start drafting them on our simple computer-aided-design program. It kept me awake for hours at night. It was stimulating. I wanted a naked house, a transparency rather than walls of plywood and sheetrock whose skin would hide nature. It was at its fantastic best when it was just open framing lumber on a plywood platform. We had paid top dollar for eleven acres of land in a spectacular end-of-road setting with uninterrupted and pristine southwest views over the one-acre pond. It was way over our budget. We had to save money for three years before we could start building. But my advice to anyone wanting to build their

It comes down to practicalities

here are many practical concerns if you want to build your own house. First and foremost, new construction is now very costly for both materials and labor. I sell country homes to city folks, and I can tell you that in much of our market area you can currently buy an existing house for about half of what it would cost you to build the same house today. Custom builders suggest that $250 to $300 a square foot is now normal for average-quality good construction for homes of 1000 to 2000 square feet. The average three- bedroom home is usually around 1500 square feet. There is a trend toward smaller homes and even a current fad for tiny houses, often on trailers for mobility. Tiny houses generally range in size from 300 to 600 square feet. The tiny-house philosophy of minimizing possessions and avoiding the 30-year mortgage trap is admirable. I salute these enthusiasts and hope their sanity and relationships can survive the compression of co-existing in these very small dwellings. If you can be outdoors most of the time, these tiny places are livable over the long term. If you live in the colder climate of the Catskills and Hudson Valley, howeber, there is an increased risk of costs for psychotherapy, anti-depressants, marriage counseling and divorce attorneys. Or at least lots of luxury vacations. Unless youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been able save or inherit a substantial sum, you will probably have to take out a construction loan, as we did. It might be easiest to work with a local lender that understands the peculiarities of building a country home, such as drilling wells and installing septic fields. Local banks are offering more flexibility these days. You can get a single-closing construction loan that converts to a fixed-rate mortgage if you can finish your project in a year. The single closing saves you the cost of paying loan fees twice, first for a construction loan and then for the regular mortgage when you get your certificate of occupancy. You can save money by being your own general contractor as I did, but youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d better be sure you have the time and patience to bid and manage a mess of subcontractors and be on-site for lots of decisions and management. It is time-consuming and stressful. Certain unusual building techniques like earthberm or tree houses are not permitted by most lenders. The small size of a tiny house is not necessarily a deal-killer long as the bank can get comparables in the local market to appraise the value for your house plans, whatever they are. RO

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traditional buildings of the past, the villages and tents and temples in which man feels at home, have always been made by people who were very close to the center of this way. And as you will see, this way will lead anyone who looks for it to buildings which are themselves as ancient in their forms as the trees and hills, and as our faces are.” Once you have navigated all the challenges of planning and building your own special place, the rewards of living in your own dream, that unique and personalized environment that only you could fantasize, means you really are home.

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30, 2017 18 | March Home Hudson Valley

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Decorating for oneself Memory, housing details and online help are what matters By Pamela Cederquist

h, the joys (and disasters) of creating a home. A place to land on the couch and sigh. A kitchen where you can putter or microwave with ease. We all want a safe space that makes us smile, whether we live in a tent or a mansion. We’ve all sat on packing boxes and wondered what the hell we’ve gotten ourselves into. I’m still learning what I like. There’s a joy to making an empty space into a home. I grew up in houses that my mother found at auction. She was gifted with “the eye,” that inherent ability to see how great a ramshackle heap can become. One house I particularly remember was standard 1970s. White walls, square rooms. The floor was linoleum. The staircase banister was painted white. There was a wood fireplace. Or was there? By the time my mother completed her magical fix she’d uncovered cherrywood banisters, a mahogany pocket door, parquet floors and a marble fireplace. She was a renovating-decorating force to be reckoned with. I’m not. I can vaguely see my way through something ramshackle, but that’s as far as it goes. Discovering my personal taste has been a hard struggle. I came late to the make-a-house-a-home party. It wasn’t until my early thirties that images of sug-

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could afford at the time. My first apartment had white walls and enough closet space for my thenboyfriend and me. We decorated with Ikea and installed an Elfa system. By the end of my time there I had learned lesson number one. No utilitarian spaces. When my boyfriend and I separated, I found a lovely apartment in a pre-war building. It had arched doorways and hardwood floors. With a limited budget, I decided to paint the walls. I went to paint stores and asked employees for advice. I stared at color samples. I covered everything with dropcloths and turned on my music. Painting was cathartic. I could see the transformation. Room by room, the space became mine. As walls and molding emerged, I considered window dressing. I flipped through magazines and stared at the ceiling. What I came up with may have been unconventional, but it was mine. That was lesson number two. A space needed to make me happy.

‘If you were a house, what would you be?’

wo years later, when I moved back to New York, I had my list of likes and dislikes. I had furniture and photos, and a shower curtain I loved. There was a box of kitchen implements and several boxes of books. I had an idea about placement. I didn’t paint the walls. I real-

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ized I had an inkling of why these elements had become a part of my lexicon. My color choices grew out of bits and pieces of my childhood. My motherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Tiffany lamp. The wisteria that grew outside my bedroom window. My canopy bed. My grandmotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cloisonnĂŠ box. The green desk at which I did my homework. The way I processed visual information stemmed from my years working as a set designer. Other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s homes fascinated me. A small statue, a painting or a photo. Why had put them there? Why those towels? Why that set of salt shakers, those cabinets? I am an experiential, kinetic learner. The homes I visit, the sets I design or shoot on â&#x20AC;&#x201D; the emotions they engender, the physical presence â&#x20AC;&#x201D; is how I learn who I am. I remember one of the games my friends played when we were young. The question was â&#x20AC;&#x153;If you were a house, what would you be?â&#x20AC;? My house was on a cliff overlooking a stormy sea with immense waves.

oday I live outside Catskill on a quiet, wooded road in a small rented house. I fantasize about a tree in the center of the kitchen. A greenhouse for fresh veggies. My house is eco-friendly and has tons of windows. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the proverbial glass house. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve come to realize that light is the most important element to keeping me happy. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m making my little rental into a home. Where do I go for ideas? Well, all that practice is paying off. I have a road map with sign posts that guide me through my journey. The first stop is my own mind. I start with a list of what I donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t want. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy. Next to that goes the list of what I do want. This oneâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s murkier. Over time, my tastes have changed. Each space has its own charms and opportunities for improvement. The process is more a hunt-and-peck than an I-know-what-Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m-doing. My next consideration are the homes Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve been in. The images in my mind or pictures on my phone. That little book shelf in the corner. The towel rack in the bathroom. The farm sink (one of my favorites). Or the burled wood table. And then I go online. Hereâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a short list of four websites: Zillow.com Zillow Digs is my number one go-to site. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s easy to mark pictures and the way information is presented makes searching easy. They have ideas for every room as well as yards and ga-

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PHOTO BY FAWN POTASH

The author's garden club for community kids looked like a bust until everyone learned the joys of a pesto harvest meal and murals on a garden shed!

Joining in Community improvement is home improvement, too By Fawn Potash

ith community improvement projects, you get to meet your neighbors and feel all warm and fuzzy inside. As a human activity, it trumps vacuuming. The only thing you feel after vacuuming is relief that you don’t have to do it again for a while. I’m not much interested in vacuuming, but I love picking up trash on the shortcut between my street and Main Street on Earth Day. I am no social director at home, but I just organized a firstever networking party for creative professionals in my area. I have also been able to contribute to my

town’s economic development by investing time and energy in projects that have attracted new energy and investment to our Main Street. In my first 20 years in the Hudson Valley, I kept myself busy building my house room by room, repairing old-house ailments, and trying to keep my water and sewer lines from freezing. I managed to acquire some great building skills, and I felt good about making a home from scratch. I liked helping others, too, but I think that maybe I had a bit too much of a survivalist head. When we moved, we picked a house with plenty of space and no big repairs needed. We found ourselves in a community that welcomed everybody’s contributions. Somewhat to our surprise, we fit right in. Impressed with the turnout at a New Year’s Day chimney fire at my house, I joined the volunteer fire department. I’m no good on the Little-League coaching front, though I can flip a burger in the concession stand as well as the next person. I joined the board at the community center. Though I found the meetings agonizing, I offered to help develop cool after-school programs anyway. I think my special skill is connecting artists to the rest of the community, adding creative energy and showing off the region’s talent. Let me give you an example. I booked a budding string-cham-

ber group that performs in libraries, street fairs, schools and other community settings. They did a lunchtime concert at my son’s elementary school, to a crowd who may not have ever seen a live violin player. The kids left their milk and sandwiches behind and rushed the stage. I was moved to tears when the musicians saw the effect of their music on the audience. They later planned a fundraiser to save the school’s music program.

he garden club was another matter. I had avoided it because my own garden shows neglect. But I saw they need younger members to help with the heavy lifting. Maybe I can help recruit, I thought. I worked with the community center and neighbors to build a garden in the back yard of the senior center. Everyone helped construct the raised beds and test the soil. We came to agreement about pesticide use. The local hardware store kicked in for a wheelbarrow, hose and hand tools. The village government donated mulch and a tool shed. Eventually we painted a mural on the shed depicting the great blight that ruined our tomato crop but thanks to the Cornell Cooperative’s good advice passed over our blight-resistant Adirondack Blue potatoes. Kids planned six of the 15 plots, dedicating two

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Ulster Publishing Co. for herbs and edible flowers and four for vegetables, plus a tower of potatoes planted in used tires. The kids planted, watered, weeded, and enjoyed soaking each other with the hose. Area chefs taught them how to make vinaigrette, oven-baked potato chips and pesto. Our farm-to-fork feast brought together the gardeners’ families, the senior-center denizens and some proud kids who now definitely know the difference between dill and basil. My documentary shots show a kid holding a giant potato against his cheek like it’s the class guinea pig. You get the idea. Challenge the kids you know to pitch in with the local food drive. Sports and service projects for kids not only lift their eyes from their ubiquitous screens, but show them the texture of their community’s social fabric. Lots of village chambers have adopted sidewalk planters and hanging baskets maintained by merchants and good-hearted gardeners to brighten up their Main Streets.

n a community, there are lots of other ways to help. Try running for office, serving on the volunteer fire department (or ladies auxiliary), planning a parade, delivering Meals on Wheels, teaching a free Qui Gong class a the library, offering tech help to confused middle-aged cellphone users (Saugerties Library!), presenting a lecture at the local library, volunteering for a pan-religious potluck dinner, or inviting opposing community factions to a round table. I guarantee any of these activities will be as instructive as Sunday school. Help organize a community volunteer appreciation day. Woodstock’s annual picnic honoring these municipal and non-profit heroes is a beautiful way of bringing everyone together to celebrate where we live and the generous spirits who live here.

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The bear and the birds Never forget the really magical experiences in life By Pia Davis

ast year’s bear, differently from the bears of my previous 25 years living in Woodstock, figured out she could climb the tree to get to the wire from which my bird feeders hang too far above her head when she’s standing on the ground. She took all five of them, carting them off into the woods to some place I couldn’t find. Among life’s more complicated questions is whether to feed birds at all in the summertime. We might say they don’t need it, as summer provides enough of their natural food sources. Surely by mid-summer this is true. Equally true is that many migrants arrive back before their natural food sources are fully operational. But even if you’re a decided winter-only feeder, the resident bear sometimes briefly wakes up in the winter (and who knows what’s going to happen with climate change). The bear’s spring alarm is also not set in stone, and often it is without warning that he or she comes charging down from the mountain, ravenous. Either way, even a winter-only feeder is liable to at least one run-in with the bear before that feeder comes down for the summer, before the migrants’ food sources are in. In any event, I don’t want to deny myself the pleasure of keeping the birds nearby, and after feeding the generally drab-colored (though just as entertaining and all the more beloved for having stayed and cheered up the seemingly lifeless landscape of the winter days) birds, there’s nothing like the visual shock — still just as strong after all these years — of the first rose-breasted grosbeak on the feeder, strongly patterned black-and-white with a huge scarlet splash on his white chest, the color scheme of a recently-fed killer whale. Or how about the early Halloween of a dazzling orange-and-black Baltimore oriole? The small Caribbean Sea that is the turquoise and aqua of the indigo bunting. Do I really want to give that up, only because I prove incapable of outsmarting the resident bear?

Bears are a fact of life for those who live in the Catskills, as well as increasing numbers of residents throughout the Hudson Valley. They’re scary and they’re cute. They teach us about how we treat our homes and yards.

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Feeding the birds is a year-long delight, but also a draw for the region’s larger critters, who might follow a birdfeed appetizer with more robust courses on porches and beyond. No, I don’t, and thus has followed 25 years of one-upsmanship between us.

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ometimes I would be on top, and sometimes the bear would be. When my daughter was four, that year’s bear took to visiting our yard almost every day around 4 p.m. Routed from her swing set some 20 feet from the feeder, my daughter counterattacked with plates of strong spices laid at the base of the feeder. After unquantifiable results with that tactic, we rigged up the garden hose to the kitchen window to try the effects of an industrial-force spray, a technique we picked up from old civil-rights footage. The bear seemed to love that. This was no ordinary feeder, incidentally. By this time in the campaign, I was outfitted with a beautiful copper feeder that happened also to be completely impenetrable by the squirrel battalion.

Weighing in at around 300 pounds, its rigid steel three-inch-square pole was mounted on a fourfoot-square cast-iron base buried a foot deep in the ground. That feeder kept me on top for nearly three summers. One morning, however, I came out to find that the bear had apparently merely been humoring me: The rigid steel three-inch-square pole was bent to the ground. That was when I came up with my most successful invention, the one which put me on top for 14 years. High up in a tree maybe 25 feet from the house is a very substantial hook supporting a wire running from the tree to a pulley on the second-floor exterior of our house. From that wire hang my feeders, a heavenly distance above the ground, heretofore safe from the squirrels and from the bear. When I need to refill the feeders I drop them

March 30, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co. down by a rope attached to the pulley. Beautiful.

would never want to vanquish the bear. Here is one of the planetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most magnificent creatures, and I am lucky enough to have the privilege, from time to time, of glimpsing it living its life. Sometimes, I will be sitting on the front stoop with one or the other of my children, and the bear will emerge from the edge of the woods and start heading up the field towards the house. (Okay, towards the feeders.) We hold very still and donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t talk, so we can watch her â&#x20AC;&#x201D; often but not always a her, and if so, usually with two cubs â&#x20AC;&#x201D; trundle up the slope. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s exciting to see them so close up â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 30 feet perhaps â&#x20AC;&#x201D; and to know they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t mind we are there. The bear always stands upright and quickly ascertains that s/he is a little too short to reach the bottom of the feeder. But itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s so much fun to see them stand! I mightâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve gloated at these moments, because I was on top, no more so than at that very moment of the reaching. But what I always feel instead is sad, because I would love to feed them. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m a mother. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s what I do: I feed. And though an argument could be made that I feed the summer birds for my own selfish pleasure, Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m not selfish enough to feed the bear. The birds benefit from my feeding. The bear would, in the long run, only be hurt by it. So instead we watch the bears continue on their way, slowly up the hill, the mother seeming to have somewhere to go, the cubs bouncing around behind her, back into the other woods.

many acorns across the Catskills, though locally in the western Catskills I found a few red oak stands that were abundant. Beech trees had mainly empty husks (no beech nut inside). And the cherry trees dropped their crop in late August/early September. Apple trees did not produce this year, but not just from a frost, they typically go biennial in producing large crops. Last year [2015] was a such a banner year that they went dormant with fruit production. This year [2017] I expect they

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should produce again. â&#x20AC;&#x153;Due to all of this lack of food (compared to last year when every species of tree produced) you probably would have seen more bears traveling closer to humans as they searched for the easy meals we tend to provide them (garbage, bird seed, etc.).â&#x20AC;? Bird seed. In any case, that was the end of my bird feeders for that summer. Sorry, everyone! Luckily, by now there are plenty of bugs for you

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ast yearâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bear was of a new order. I have mentioned she was the first one to figure out climbing the tree and exerting the full force of her will upon my wire. Looking back, I realize that after a time Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d become complacent, which any commander knows is a dangerous attitude to adopt. And then last year, after the first attack, I was initially in denial, because I fixed the wire and hung four more previously decommissioned feeders on it, an action resulting in my demotion from general to private. But of course she came back for them, and those feeders too disappeared. I did find two of those feeders later in the fall, when I was walking way up in the woods. I asked John MacNaught, wildlife specialist at the Catskill Forest Association, whether heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d experienced unusual bear behavior during the summer. By email he told me, â&#x20AC;&#x153;I had a pretty typical year for bear sightings, I saw ten or so. I normally see ten or 15 each year. Though I did have one incident of a bear getting into my BBQ grill on the second-story deck of my home, this was a first. â&#x20AC;&#x153;As far as food, this was a very poor mast year in comparison to last. Oak trees did not produce

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creatures to eat, and they have the thick blueberry bushes (whose heavy crop last year actually brought scarlet tanagers down from their usual strictly-treetop-canopy habitat) and all the other trees and shrubs I’ve put in especially for your benefit, without question one of the best ways we can help birds.

ne evening in July I walked out to the patio just in time to see the bear and her cubs down at the bluebird nest box, which was then occupied by four tree-swallow nestlings. This was also something that has never happened to us until this bear. The bird feeders are one thing, but proposing to eat “my” baby tree swallows was at outrage of another magnitude. At any rate, the bear was past the proposal stage. I tore down the hill, yelling at the top of my lungs. She had ripped the box off its pole, but then dropped it upside down when she saw the crazy person running towards her. I picked up the box and rearranged the nestlings, who were perhaps traumatized but in other respects intact. It was dusk, and my first thought

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was to get the box back up so the parents would feel okay about the episode, before they had time to mull it over during the night. The pole was bent almost to the ground, so I got my tools and mounted the box on a nearby tree, then went back up to the patio to watch for the parents to come back. I feel the shortfall in my own parenting when I observe the tireless devotion of bird parents. All day long from dawn to dusk they are completely dedicated to the task of caring for their young, hunting insects and bringing them back to the box. With a splendidly figured, precise maneuver, they land at the entrance hole of the house, clutching to the outside of the box for a moment, only long enough to poke their head inside and feed one of the gaping mouths. Then they fly off again.

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All day long, dawn to dusk, over and over, regardless of weather or fatigue. Sometimes one or the other parent will go inside the box and come right back out carrying a fecal sac, which they drop far from the nest in order to avoid giving this clue to potential predators, and from there immediately back to foraging. While bluebirds, for example, perch and scan the ground for an insect, tree swallows catch their insects on the wing, and it is perhaps an evolutionary result of this that there is an elegance in their flight unmatched by any other of the species in our yard. Watching them swooping, circling, sailing and swirling across the sky makes me feel that life is unquestionably worth living.

It was getting dark. I wished they would come back, just once before nightfall, not so much for the benefit of the nestlings as for myself. I didn’t want to spend an anxious night wondering whether they would abandon the nest.

ut they didn’t come back, and I knew the bear very well might, so I went down and unscrewed the box and put it in my bedroom closet. I spent an almost sleepless night, worried about what would happen if the parents didn’t come back. The nestlings would have to go to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator, or I could raise them myself under the supervision of someone licensed, since

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I had let my own license expire when the care of my own human nestlings seemed to require all the resources I could muster. Baby birds must be fed every 20 minutes from dawn to dusk, and it has to be the right food or they will either die or be so physically compromised they will never survive the grueling enterprise of migration. I could do the feeding, if it came to it. But the transition from nestling to fledgling: The definition of a successful rehabilitation is one that ends in the animal being able to reproduce in the wild. Who will teach them the song that is unique to their species and which they will need to establish territory, to attract a mate? In the case of the tree swallows, who but their parents can teach them to catch insects on the wing, and how, when they are parents, will they know the incredible technique of feeding in midair an insect to their own newlyfledged offspring? All the things they need to learn from their parents. The most well-intentioned, generous human being is a miserable second choice. But the pole was bent. The parents hadn’t come back when I attached the box to the nearby tree. What should I do? All I could think about was those parents coming back. Four a.m., pre-dawn, before the parents would wake up. I was out of bed, down in the meadow with my tools and the box of nestlings, finding the small miracle of a pole that had not been ripped out of the ground and could be straightened enough. I reattached the box to the damaged pole and beat a hasty retreat as the sky lightened. I closed the door behind me and went to the couch to watch out the window and wait, full of the world’s weary woes. The parents were back within a minute. Of course they were! They had a lot invested in those four creatures, they would not give up so easily, and I could’ve had confidence in that. If I weren’t such a pessimist, I’m sure I would have. I stationed a guard, usually myself, on the patio during the day, and I put my tent up and slept 15 feet from the box. I’d forgotten how wonderful it is to sleep outside. (Well, at least the way I was doing it, in full sleeping comfort, on top of a blow-up mattress, with sheets, quilt and my two bed pillows.) The darkness, the stars, the moon rising and traveling its arc across the sky, the bewitching sounds of the night, the rapture of the birds’ dawn chorus. I’ve gotten too lazy to put my tent up, unless I actually go camping, which I also seldom do any more, through the same laziness and whatever else happens the further you get from childhood that makes you forget what the really magical experiences in life are. For the next twelve nights, until they fledged, I remembered.

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Brand-new used car Moving up from the best of the beaters By Jodi LaMarco

had just blown through yet another radiator on my Jeep Grand Cherokee when I decided it was time to stop buying old cars. My strategy had been to seek out the best of the beaters. (The Urban Dictionary defines a beater as a $50 car. It says you can hold the rusty body panels together with radio station stickers) Up to then, I had selected reliable, cheap-to-fix models I could purchase for cash. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;d check the undercarriage for rust, monitor the oil for obvious warning signs, and cross my fingers. That may sound a little dicey, and perhaps it was, but my method had gotten me through 15 years of usedcar purchases without my suffering any major disasters. Capable of clocking beyond 200,000 miles, Jeeps certainly fit my requirements. My 2001 Grand Cherokee was the third I had owned, the others being a 1989 Cherokee Sport in high school and a 1992 YJ at the tail end of college. Buying old cars in cash from private sellers seemed to me to make good economic sense. The idea of taking on a loan had scared me away from purchasing new, and I had no desire to haggle with a dealership for an overpriced used car. When my radiator on the Grand Cherokee went for the second time, I began to wonder whether I was actually coming out ahead. Might I be simply avoiding the anxiety of dealing with a bank? I decided to do the math. I compared what I had paid for my Jeep plus the cost of repairs to date against what I would have shelled out in car payments for a new compact. To my surprise, the result was nearly a wash. Could it be that I had been suffering through constant repairs on a high-mileage vehicle, along with the ever-present fear of a breakdown, all the while thinking that I was saving myself money? You bet I had. It was time for a new car. Or at least a much newer one. I narrowed down my choices to either a Hyundai Accent or a Honda Fit, both vehicles known for being reliable, fuel-efficient and affordable. I also opted for an extended warranty to eliminate the financial blow a major repair would cause while the car was still being paid off. The cost of the warranty is included in my monthly payment, which means Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m being charged interest on that money. Be that as it may, a moderately higher payment is far more manageable than an unexpected $1000 repair would have been. What really sold me was my good fortune in finding a retired rental car with less than 15,000 miles on it. By purchasing a slightly used vehicle, I was able to drive off the lot for a lot less money than if the car had been new. Switching out old for newer also made sense because I have good credit and was able to get a fantastic interest rate. If a bad credit score would jack the price of your payments, you might be bet-

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Despite more Americans moving on from the days of rampant used-car sales, many of us still harbor fond thoughts for the huckster salesmen of old, as epitomized in the classic late 1970s comedy Used Cars, starring a young Kurt Russell. ter off sticking with my old strategy. In either case, do your homework. If loans confuse you, try using an online loan calculator to figure out if you can realistically afford car payments. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re sticking with used, remember that it wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t do you much good to get a fantastic deal if repairs for your chosen model are notoriously expensive. If youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re having second thoughts about making a down payment, you may want to consider leasing. Leases often allow drivers to avoid putting money down for their car, and monthly payments are typically lower than those on a loan. That said, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s usually more advantageous to buy rather than to lease. Purchasing a car tends to be more economical over time, and many drivers find the requirements of a lease too restrictive. Dealers usually impose a limit of 10,000 to 15,000 miles annually and require drivers to return their car in good shape. If you have a habit of beating up on your vehicles, donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t lease! Of course, the flip side of getting a new car is disposing of your old one. I was a little sad to see my Jeep go. Though it was pushing 200,000 miles when I finally sold it, it was the first car I had ever

purchased that had been made after the millennium. With heated leather seats, a sunroof and a CD player, it had provided the most fun, comfortable ride of any vehicle I had owned. I decided to sell my car through Craigslist, the Wild West of buying and selling. I was familiar with its hazards; no-shows, false advertising, and the myriad dangers of negotiating with the mentally unstable. Luckily, the resell gods took pity on me and sent me a sane, pleasant buyer who ultimately showed up when he said he would with the amount upon which we had agreed. In typical Craigslist fashion, there was of course a small quirk to the transaction. The buyer asked me to drop the price by fifty bucks to absorb some of the DMV costs. Having already listed my car at a reasonable price, I was reluctant to do so. We decided to strike a compromise. In exchange for lowering the price, the buyer gave me a cooler filled with fresh butter, crĂ¨me fraiche, and a kaleidoscope of pastel-colored yogurt drinks from the farm he worked for. I got cash and a boatload of dairy products. He got the best of the beaters. We both drove away happy.

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WIKICOMMONS

Creatures are cute in images, as movie characters or when nestled into an aquarium with a lid on. Left to make their way through your property, however, they can wreak destruction. They can drive the most peaceful men and women to their primitive destroyer instincts.

Of mice and man Then there are the smaller threats, the ones you canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always see and may not notice that are there lurking in the shadows, in your walls and under your floors. From the harmless line of tiny single-file ants walking through the kitchen in early spring to the sawdust-spewing holes of carpenter bees making nests in the eaves, some threats are more significant than others. Are termites eating away at my sill plates? Is black mold growing inside my walls? Being a semi-vigilant part-time slacker, I would say that Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m mostly half-aware of what pests might be teaming up to make my life more interesting through their destructive chewings. And I do what I can to keep them at bay. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve sprayed for termites, put out ant traps, plugged carpenterbee holes, and have thought about painting all the

Lists are good, but getting rid of pests the best By Harry Matthews

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eaves sky-blue to keep the pests from coming back (in the South they call the color â&#x20AC;&#x153;haint blueâ&#x20AC;? as it doubles as a ghost repellent). I havenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t come to these decisions lightly, but after years of experimentation with conscience-testing alternatives, in the end I do what I do out of a pure need to save my buildings. Iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve always been completely against harming any creature, to the extent of trapping a house fly in a glass and releasing it outside. But if they choose to enter my home for whatever destructive reason they may have, all bets are off. Seemingly the worst offenders, and the ones that test not only my patience but my conscience as well, are the mice. They can appear out of nowhere, run up a wall, and disappear into an impossibly small hole that doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t seem big enough for their bodies. They will build nests all over the place, making piles of fibrous material taken from God-knows-where and proceed to fill them with food, mouse babies, and large amounts of droppings and urine, creating horribly stinky messes that have the ability to permeate every part of the house. Beyond this, they also happen to be the

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a heavy heart, I went to the age-old timetested method of the snap trap. I have to admit that it was completely effective, even though I hated every bit of it. And hopefully their demise is fast, with no suffering. When I find one, I take it out into the woods and leave it for nature to devour back into the earth. Since starting with these traps, and possibly due in part to the guilt I’ve felt I’ve found that my care for nature and the wild creatures beyond my walls has increased tenfold. I regularly rescue birds, snakes and turtles off the roadways, always carrying proper implements in my car to help. We’ve started donating more to big-cat sanctuaries, defenders of wildlife and the like. We also feed

hen I first moved to the area and lived in a little place outside Woodstock I bought a live trap which well suited my new-found desire to be at one with nature. A few days after first setting it out I was surprised to find it brimming with little grey mice. I grabbed the trap, hopped in my car, and drove out to a long empty stretch of a little back road, far from any houses. It was a cold day, and as I opened the lid of the trap and tipped it onto the frozen ground I was hit with a feeling of despair as I watched them scatter in all directions. Had I just broken up a family? Would they have a chance out here? In my torn state of how to tackle this problem, I didn’t rebait the trap again for a week. Then one night there was such a loud flurry of activity that the next morning I re-baited the trap and set it out. Then I completely forgot about it. What I found when I did finally remember it a few weeks later is too gruesome to describe. Suffice it to say that it was not a pretty sight. I gave up on the mice and let them be. Within a few months my partner and I were able to buy our own house, and I moved out. The idea of becoming a homeowner brought a desire to tighten up the house to keep the pests out. As it was an old house, this proved nearly impossible. The house had come with two outdoor cats we were happy to adopt and bring in to join our own cats. After that we’ve never had much of a mouse issue inside the house. If one unwittingly strays in, it’s quickly dispatched by our ever-watchful felines.

t was the other buildings on the property that became the issue. After our first winter I walked down to inspect our little cabin by the creek and found it trashed by the mice who had taken up residence there. Droppings and bits of paper covered every surface. Rugs had been shredded. Where they had built their nests inside a part of the ceiling had to be completely ripped away and rebuilt. And what I found when I pulled the last board off was nauseating. In one of the cottages that we rent out on the property the mice have done such extensive damage that I’ve had to replace all the appliances, paint repeatedly, buy new rugs, etc. And this is with every possible hole plugged!

In my efforts to keep the mice at bay and out of our buildings I’ve experimented with practically every type of deterrent available. I first tried a peppermint-and-water spray which they are supposed to hate, with no success. Then I tried the sonic plug-in deterrents, also to no avail. As I feared for my cats and other ferals living on our land, I wasn’t going to use poison. So finally, with

lots of our local birds. I don’t know whether any of this balances out my actions against the mice, but at least it helps me to cope with what I’m doing. In the end I’m hoping it’s all just circle-of-life, and that no vengeance-seeking rodent will come gunning for me. We’ll see.

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Garden prep Growing your own involves work, but it’s worth it By Ann Hutton

few years back, my husband and my neighbor’s spouse rented a sod cutter and rolled up a 20-foot-by40-foot section of grass in my back yard. We wanted to grow veggies. Wendy and Jim had been weekenders in Stone Ridge for decades, during which time their yard had been overtaken by shade. Bob and I had moved in only five years before with no intention of becoming farmers. Our foray into cogardening to produce enough vegetables on this plot to feed both households started off with a soggy bang. Under the lawn, water flowed freely and abundantly. It was a mucky mess. We persevered. Brought in topsoil. Brought in composted steer manure. Shoveled and tilled in wheelbarrows of horse manure from the farm down the road. Plucked out stones that seemed to rise up endlessly through the wet undersoil to emerge into daylight. Built raised beds and surrounded them with deer fencing. It was harder work than any of us had bargained for. Still, we prepped and planted each year. We soon recognized that conditions in the garden do not remain the same. In every new season and

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Many local gardeners start their spring work while snow’s still on the ground, getting their seedlings under way inside when there’s sufﬁcient sunlight and warmth. every radical new development caused by global warming, we face never-yet-experienced weather patterns. It’s a crap shoot, and I’m no gambler. Overall, the effort has been worth it. We’ve gleaned hundreds of pounds of produce — tomatoes, basil, green beans, butternut and acorn squash, cucumbers, arugula, lettuces, kale, spinach, Swiss chard, kohlrabi, peppers, broccoli, beets, carrots, radishes, potatoes, chives, garlic, parsley, peas and more green beans — an overwhelming amount of food, really. The abundance of nature humbles, and then it demands action in the ways of canning, drying, freezing and pickling to do such a harvest justice.

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e have also experimented and failed numerous times. There was the year of the straw-bale beds, treated with highpotency fertilizer and twined to sort of hold the bales in place while seeds tried to take root and grow in them. The seedlings fell over and the bales disintegrated on the spot. Then there was the attempt to plant winter squashes in a giant circle outside the garden fence, since they had overtaken everything the year before like monster plants, demanding space and nutrition, and crying out, “Feed me, Seymour!” Local woodchucks liked this outside-the-fence plan, and our harvest was ultimately puny. We carried on. It took us awhile to figure out the difference between determinant and non-determinant tomatoes, bush and pole beans. How much to water and when. To weed or not to weed. Trial and error dictated when to plant spinach for the best results, whether to allow volunteer tomatoes to grow where they sprouted, and how many basil plants two families need for freezing enough pesto to last all winter. Our guesses were often skewed one way or another — not enough or too much — and never more so than when dealing with pests and pestilence. An overnight onslaught of Japanese beetles can decimate bean leaves pretty quickly. One sum-

mer our tomatoes suffered a plague. Another, it was potatoes riddled with wireworm tunnels. Last season the bunnies got aggressive. They were cute, but they actually bent open the wire fencing to get into our beds. Now there’s evidence that voles have dined on the few carrots we left in the ground over the winter.

he more we learn, the more possibilities for disaster seem endless. Recently I read an article about the woes of using uncertified compost that might contain herbicides. Not good for your plants. My greatest tragedy struck, however, when I bought all the proper equipment to start seeds in the basement — the trays with little cells, the grow lights, the perfect planting medium. To witness the miracle of a tiny sprout sticking up above the soil is the epitome of green-thumb hope. But as soon as these seedlings were big enough to take the plastic covers off the trays, mice helped themselves to a delicious dinner. I was pissed. I was convinced that we needed a greenhouse, one impossible for critters to penetrate. My husband jumped into his truck and went over to Harbor Freight in Poughkeepsie, where greenhouse kits were on sale: $299 slashed to $199 for a sixby-eight polycarbonate structure guaranteed with proper assembly to foil the little buggers while allowing us to become ever more innovative and independent. You get the picture. We were once back-to-theland hippies who made tofu from scratch and hung our washing out on a line. Starting seeds is but a fond extension of that long-ago impulse.

n between snowstorms this winter, we cleared a space where our new greenhouse will sit next to the compost pile and within reach of the hose. Bob has already purchased the pressuretreated lumber to construct an eight-by-ten-foot frame that will be filled with pea gravel. He’s got the four-by-fours ready for assembly and insert into concrete piers that will keep the structure level and secured, the arrival of another hurricane notwithstanding. The extruded aluminum framing that captures the clear plastic panels will be permanently fixed to this base. I can hardly wait. We sat in Outdated the other day, discussing the procedure of building this greenhouse, from ground-leveling to installing shelves made of reclaimed cedar siding to bringing in trays and cartons of happy vegetable plants. I’m starting them in the safety of my mouse-free kitchen, where they will remain until I can harden them off in their fantastic brand-new plastic home. From there, they will be transplanted into the ground. With any luck, the produce will end up on our tables. Considering our on-and-off results these past few years, I cannot imagine how anyone ever managed to feed themselves entirely from what

March 30, 2017 Home Hudson Valley

Ulster Publishing Co.

| 31

matured? Their failures might have brought on starvation and even death. Ours amount to a temporary bummer, a loss of a few bucks spent in seeds and materials, and the leisurely necessity to study up over the winter months. Learn some new tricks and start over again. On the plus side, my dreams of occupying even a small, utilitarian greenhouse would not have materialized had those mice not raided my seedlings. Veggie gardening keeps me grateful — and sometimes mindful of the bigger picture in which we all play our part.

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