Forget the palatial estate with horse barn, swimming pool and five-bedroom Victorian. Today's hot Catskills property is a moldering cabin on 30 brushy acres, with Plexiglas windows and "BRIAN SHOT A BUCK 11/16/08" chalked on the door.
Don't believe me? Check out the newest blog on the block, in which intrepid Brooklynites B.C. and Kat are documenting their progress fixing an old hunting cabin that, if it were a horse, would surely be on its way to the glue factory. Today's post is full of photos that would send your average vacationing Upper East Sider shrieking to the Hamptons:
The windows and the front door have almost no insulating value. The “door” to the attic is a piece of drywall. There are gaps everywhere, like at the corners where the “windows” meet the walls; some walls have sections without insulation and drywall; and there are even some holes in the exterior walls. All of this has to be fixed!
B.C. and Kat have bigger ambitions than gussying up the cabin, though.
There is another motivation behind the project, at least for me, a boy scout in mentality if not in actuality, and that is to prepare for financial hardship and social chaos in the wake of economic, environmental, or political upheaval… all three of which have seemed imminent these past five years. It seems wise to have a home in a good community that is both off-grid-ready and capable of being agriculturally productive. It is that much easier for us to move in this direction because homesteading is something we want to do anyway, and would likely want to do on some scale even if the fall of the Soviet Union had been the End of History and climate change proved to be a hoax.
Welcome to Margaretville, B.C. and Kat! First item of business: You should probably call the CWC. They might be able to help you out with your, er, plumbing issue.
I will note that the pipes below, disconnected at the joint, direct the waste from the flush toilet down the hill and into a ditch only several yards behind the house. And this ditch, in turn, is about a hundred yards uphill from a stream that feeds directly into New York City’s drinking water supply.
