Homesteaders

These are the people in our neighborhood: Stuyvesant farmhouse renovation on a budget

Heather — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 21:39:49 +0000

Young Brooklynites Matt and Esther Dockery do right by their 1815 Stuyvesant farmhouse in this recently completed reno. Purchased in 2006, Matt and Esther’s dream of updating and opening up the space got derailed by the recession. There was a period of 18 months where the house, stripped down to its core, sat unused because they couldn’t afford to heat it.

But they were not deterred; through friends, resourcefulness and a little patience, they held on to the property and eventually completed the renovation. I think it was worth the wait.

To see before pictures read more about the renovation, click here.

Photo via NBO4 and hvmag.com

infestation

Heather — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 22:12:09 +0000

We’re here, just busy with, you know, life stuff.

We’re also in the middle of a mouse infestation. In November and December, we came home a few Friday nights to a house full of mouse poop and hidden piles of lentils, nuts and other edible items. They’re eating. They’re nesting. They’re running wild throughout our house and all over our furniture. On our bed. In our pantry. There isn’t a room they haven’t touched. At night, they scramble through the walls.

Apparently we’re not alone. The guy we called to come help ‘remediate’ (we did trap five ourselves, but soon realized the scope of the situation was way beyond us) said this is the worst fall/early winter he and his colleagues have seen in 40 years. 40 years! I think this piece from the NYTimes on the dearth of acorns probably has something to do with it.

We haven’t been up in the last two weeks to see how it’s going, but our guy told us that after 8 days of traps (he checks them daily), he’d got 27 mice.

27!

These aren’t little brown field mice, either. They’re good-sized, whitish/gray suckers. The numbers have now decreased to only 1 every few days so we think it may be under control. He’s put foam and steel wool in holes in the walls – we’ll see whether that keeps them from returning.

Anyone else being outnumbered by mice this year?

Happy Thanksgiving

Heather — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:48:09 +0000

Enjoy your turkey!

New used chairs

Heather — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 16:58:42 +0000

Here’s a project I tackled this summer.

Turning a pair of these drab, stained chairs:

Into these shiny happy ones:

They’re not quite done – the back cushions need to be attached to the chair so they appear to float, rather than just sitting on the seat cushions – but I’m happy.

I made a misstep when I let the guy at the paint store convince me to try this ‘it’s not oil but it acts like oil’ product that was both the wrong color and finish. So the project took longer than I expected. I found a new paint guy and ended up with an oil-based, glossy black paint from Ben Moore. While I love working with oil, I hate cleaning it up. Also: there’s no poly or wax on top. A lot of the blogs I read recommend it. Maybe that’s because the blogs I read tend to use water-based paints and they chip easier. I don’t know.

The fabric is Robert Allen, found at fabric.com.

Hudson Passive Project Open House

Heather — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 16:50:42 +0000

This Sunday, Dennis Wedlick’s Hudson Passive Project is having an open house from 2-5pm. If you’re anywhere near Claverack, stop by. We certainly plan on it.

For more photos, see the New York Times photo tour here.

More info on the Passive Project here.

Field Farm

Heather — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 23:10:52 +0000

We took a trip up to Field Farm in Williamstown a few weeks ago.

Field Farm is 300 acres of fields, woods and wetlands owned and operated by the Trustees of Reservations of Massachusetts. The path winds around the property for about 2-4 miles depending upon which loops you take.

There are two modernist homes on the property: the one on the right is the Guest House you can stay in for $200-300 a night. The Folly, on the left, is open for tours June – October.

It was pretty quiet the day we were there – only one other family walking, and one car at the B&B.

This fall has been spotty up here; the color was stalled on some trees and on others the leaves fell before they could turn. So by mid-October, a third of the trees had color, a third were still green, and a third were completely bare. Now it’s November and we got a foot of snow last week.

I guess that means we better get mulching.

film columbia 2011

Heather — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:51:25 +0000

It’s time for our favorite film festival of the year: Film Columbia held at the single-screen Crandell Theater in Chatham, NY. I wrote about our 2009 visit here.

This year, we’ve snagged tickets for:

A Dangerous Method, starring my new obsession Michael Fassbender (Jane Eyre, Fish Tank). A psycho-sexual thriller about the woman who comes between Jung and Freud starring Fassbender, Viggo Mortensen and Kira Knightly? Front row, please.

Martha, Marcy, May, Marlene, about a young woman who joins a cult, then leaves the cult and attempts to re-acclimate to ‘normal life’ at the home of her sister. Stars the Olsen twins’ little sister Elizabeth (“Lizzie”), who gave the breakout performance of this year’s Sundance. Hugh Dancy (husband to Clare Danes) and Sarah Paulson (tell me you didn’t love
(Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) also star.

And The Kid with a Bike, the Grand Prix winner at this year’s Cannes Film Festival about an abandoned boy who sets out to find both his father and his bike. A hairdresser he meets along the way helps him find, if not actually recover, both.

Other highlights include Corioloanus (Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut), Melancholia (Lars Von Trier’s best work yet?), The Artist (homage to silent film era’s Chaplin, Keaton, Griffith, et al), Anonymous (local screenwriter John Orloff raises the Shakespeare authorship question in this cloak-and-dagger story) and We Need to Talk About Kevin (Tilda Swinton = can do no wrong).

We didn’t get tickets to the “Saturday Night Sneak” in time; it’s now sold out. Last year’s “Sneak” was Black Swan. I have a suspicion it’s going to be The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which I’ve been dying to see, but having watched the original Swedish version over the weekend, am not entirely confident even the great David Fincher can improve upon it. See it, but be warned: it’s extremely violent.

Tickets to Film Columbia 2011 here.

mt. greylock

Heather — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 18:17:16 +0000

Almost four years living upstate and we’d never been to Mt. Greylock.

We picked a perfect day to make our first visit.

Next time, we’ll bring our hiking boots.

summer recap

Heather — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 01:33:28 +0000

I gave you all a quick rundown of our summer here. Now that it’s October, I figured it would be the perfect time to share even more summer highlights. ‘Cause I’m an organized, consistent blogger that way.

Monhegan Island, Maine, July 4th weekend

Hydrangea and rose front yard explosion

Blueberries coming in

Unidentified backyard flower

Friends of the Farmer, Copake

My beautiful cukes!

One of many mushrooms at CLC’s Hand Hollow

Late summer overgrowth

Mt. Greylock (more pics to come)

Delicious birthday panna cotta

The truth is I wasn’t just being lazy by not sharing these earlier. We (okay, me) misplaced our camera for about a month, so every photo from July and August that wasn’t on an iphone was thought to be lost. I’m glad they weren’t.

golden

Heather — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 11:40:52 +0000

We went apple picking this weekend but came up short on my favorite variety to bake with: Golden Delicious. As a substitute, I left with Ginger Golds and Cortlands.

The Ginger Golds didn’t hold their shape when cooked, but would make a delicious, sweet apple sauce. They also didn’t brown, which is a big plus when baking, especially when you step away for an hour to enjoy a bowl of homemade chili. I’ll try the Cortlands next.

I don’t have pics of the crisp, but will leave you with something else that’s golden: