Broken Guitars and Bloody Fingertips

Sure, Jimi Hendrix may have made love to his flaming freak guitar and Janis may have belted out the blues under the bourbon sky and Pete Townsend may have smashed his guitars with bloody fingertips and Ozzy can bit off the all heads of bats he wants, the Dead can space out for decades at a time and Zepplin can destroy hotel rooms, throwing TV's out the windows and ravaging women, and but in terms of just full-on, rock-the-house, head banging, design and construction, no one is topping the charts quite like Catskill Farms.

We are building outside Narrowsburg, up above Lucky Lake, now in a beautiful area named Weiden Estates. It's nearly perfect with evergreen landscapes that remind me of the western Rockies, a big lake and lots of large private parcels of land. We bought up a 12 acres piece, a 15 acre piece, a 17 acre piece and a 8 acre piece - all with the help of our local Jeff Bank, of course.

Up above is one the driveway trucks coming down the road. God, with the rain slowing and the sun and wind drying out the land, we put in 3 driveways and started 3 foundations this week.

It was operatic in it's melody of noise and activity. 2 excavation teams and a hardworking mason flew us threw us across the week. We dug three foundation wholes, formed and poured 3 footings, formed and poured 2 foundation wall systems and at Barn IV we stripped the forms, put the drainage in and poured the floor and backfilled. That's impressive - I would match our design and construction team against any team, any where, any day. Bring it on.

Barn IV is under construction, with a big windy driveway ending with 1300 sq ft of loft living. Comes with 5 acres above Lucky Lake. It's a home that does not have a buyer as we speak - going to go for $335k +/-. A couple who just left my office is seriously considering jumping in.

And then the tar and the backfill. That's quick, especially for a bunch of country boys. I'm a big fan of the Hank Williams Jr song "Country Boy will Survive", and lately man this album from 1993 by a band named James is never leaving my side - the album's name is Laid, and everyone pretty much knows the title track, but delve a little further and jeez those guys can feel it.

And once you can feel it, everything else is easy.

The long and winding road up to Cottage 36.

I think the picture above is pretty cool for it's proportion and scale.

and then the walls are formed and poured almost like magic. Although it's actually because we have the best team since '68 Dodgers (I don't know anything about baseball, so if the dodgers stank in '68 then this analogy probably should be rethought.) And it's actually also because the team is fielding my calls and texts and emails at all hours of the night and day.

"Get it done" - "Where are you?" - "What's next?" "Don't fuck anything up" are my most common refrains these days.

Like they say, make hay while the sun is shining - and the sun is shining. Gloriously.

Farm 11 on 12 acres and long ass driveway to the top of the hill.

And like whoa, holy cow, deja vu. Another foundation hole.

And Micro Cottage 4 coming along nicely. Just saw where a national home builder is coming out with a micro project of 35 homes. We constantly stay ahead of the curve.