Tuesday, November 11, 2008








GORGEOUS fall leaves, perfect weather - anyone who hasn't taken a fall getaway, it's really not too late...the past weekend was ideal, but we still have lots of color! No crowds at the wineries either - and some really good wines being served.


We went to Blue Mountain Brewery for a tasting and lunch last week - for just $5 you get a sampling of all 6 or 7 of their beers...it was WONDERFUL! I had a beer-poached and then grilled bratwurst from local pork producers extrordinaire Double H farm, for $8...yum. The food was great, the views pretty, and the beer was all fantastic - it was about a 30 minute drive west of here, through rolling hills and farmland. A great afternoon trip you could combine with a visit to the Greenwood Gourmet Shop (the best pumpkin selection I have ever seen, wonderful wines and interesting gifts) and the Greenwood Country Store (one of my new favourite second-hand treasure stores!)

AND...in just a few short weeks WINTER will be here, bringing in delicious cold weather good for the cozy in-room fireplaces, hot chocolate & holiday decorations. We had only one REALLY good snow last year - thank goodness we took pictures that day! In Vermont, where we spent the last five years prior to coming to Charlottesville, there is no rush to get out and take snow pictures the first time it snows...you will have months and months to get the cameras out for that perfect winter shot. In March though, we are glad to be in the south, with daffodils and crocus erupting here with the Northeast still buried in feet of snow. That said, the winter here is gratefully enjoyed by the sleeping garden - and our holiday decorations go up the weekend after Thanksgiving! Glorious Christmas trees, spicy scents from the kitchen, and candy surprises everywhere - and our winter rates of course... Starting in early December, our rooms are just $125 per night, any room! We will probably be planning a little something for New Year's Eve this year - stay tuned, or check in with us by early December for details.

For an old-fashioned holiday experience, come stay from December 19th through the 21st and see Scottsville's 'Festival of Lights' - our Victory Hall Theatre has plans to host a multitude of trees, each one decorated by a local merchant, school or citizen...and our town tree is also a special one this year...check back on December 7th for pictures of the tree lighting and the story of the tree. All month from Thanksgiving to Christmas, we can provide you with a map of our favorite off-the-beaten-path shops and a picnic lunch for a day of shopping. Come back to the inn and choose from a variety of papers, boxes and bows to get the wrapping done before you leave!





Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Herb Festival!

Our Fall Herb Festival is happening in just 2 short weeks...it doesn't seem possible that summer is over already, and leaves will be starting to turn soon. Saturday October 11 we will host our second herb festival, the first in the fall. We are hoping for more herb and garden themed crafts and gifts, as well as our other guests from the spring. What better time to plant than fall? Tidy up the garden, and plan for next year, get rain barrels installed...and of course October weather is usually gorgeous.

Ducklings are nearly grown, and the fluffy chicks are teenagers - they eat all the time! Grass is their favorite, and when one spies a bug - watch out - the others come to fight over it...they should begin laying in a few weeks, so nesting boxes are on my 'to do' list for this month.

We are all trying to save money this year, I know - we are starting our winter special a bit early this year - stay from December 15th through March 30th - any room, just $125 per night...you can't get away from the city for better than that! Our breakfasts get you off to a great start - for locals, we can have you back to work and feeing like you have taken a much longer holiday than just a mid-week overnighter...don't forget about gift certificates too - great gifts for family or coworkers - and a great class gift for a teacher.

Enjoy the early fall winter will be here before we know it (cozy fireplaces anyone?)

Friday, August 8, 2008

So much to do in Charlottesville now!! This weekend, we are planning to finally visit Sugarleaf Vineyards - www.sugarleafvineyards.com - and I couldn't be happier! As innkeepers busy not only with the day to day running of the inn and taking care of guests, but also still renovating house and gardens - it is often hard to find time to do the things we know our guests are enjoying. So, even though many guests have raved about it - and Lauren has visited us several times with kind invitations - we have yet to visit, and it isn't even that far! So - I will have pictures and a report on Monday.

This weekend is also a winemaking workshop at Monticello, with Gabrielle Rausse - who also happens to care for our vineyard and make our wine. We are crossing our fingers that this harvest will be a good one for a red from our grapes...we need rain, but if it can hold off a couple of weeks til harvest Gabrielle will be a happy man!

We are currently making plans to restore some of the vines that have been lost over the last 20 or so years...we dig the holes in the fall, and plant the new vines in spring. Gabrielle said that though Pinot Noir isn't the best grape choice for Virginia - he can ALWAYS use them in one way or another - last season for example, he blended ours with some from Barboursville...can't wait to try that.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008



It is almost harvest time for our grapes...we have over an acre of Pinot Noir - not the best grape to grow in Virginia, as winemakers have discovered over the last 25 years, BUT - our vineyard was planted in the mid-80's when it was all still kind of an experiment here! Gabrielle Rausse helped get this vineyard started, and he still is THE MAN to talk to about vinifera in Virginia. He tends our vineyard and makes our wine - so I am sure it is pretty much the very best it can be!

Last year, we had big trouble with frost, drought, and beetles. That, plus the fact that so many trees have been allowed to grow up around our vineyard to house birds that will EAT the grapes and give too much shade, made for a pretty small harvest. This year, we have big, fat, full bunches of grapes everywhere - not as many as in years past, but it is beautiful! Hopefully, with our pruning and thinning of the cedars surrounding the vineyard, and replanting some vines, next year will be back in full swing. I also happen to think that just walking in the vineyard thinking happy thoughts helps them produce more...not very scientific, but maybe they know how much we love it here! (Remember those reports in the 70's that made people talk to houseplants? I still kind of like to believe that... ) Anyway, it is great fun to come watch the harvest - usually around the third week in August, and Gabrielle is giving guided tours at some local vineyards this weekend, if you are really into wine.

Sunday, July 27, 2008

ducklings hatching!

The ducklings are hatching! Reports from the incubator: out of 9 eggs, one wasn't viable, one has a pinhole and may not hatch, 4 have hatched and seem to be active and healthy, 3 to go! Plus of course the one lonely egg that Mama duck is still actually sitting on...if it hatches, it will be in the next day or 2.

The Scottsville Farmer's Market Tomato Festival was yesterday - what fun! Over 600 people attended, we had 16 tomato varieties to taste, and several demonstrations - including canning and Fried Green Tomatoes...yum! (late summer may find crispy, cornmeal-crusted fried green tomatoes on breakfast plates - if you are a fan, be sure to ask and I will make them for you!)

Also in Scottsville - coming up on August 9th, the 'Honey Dewdrops' return to Victory Hall. If you are planning a visit, include that show on your itinerary. They won the 'Prairie Home Companion' young artists competition this past year - and they live here!

If you are hoping to come in the fall - October 11 is our Fall Herb Festival, and the Saturday before that is Old Farm Days at Pleasant Grove...about a 15 minute drive, and a great way to spend a fall Saturday.

Sunday, July 20, 2008


Well, you wouldn't know it from this - but there is actually a pond for ducks at the edge of the yard in the woods....yet they seem to like being around the chickens and us, too. Mama is the one splashing in the tub...Papa is the brown and white one on guard. It is interesting - we started with a flock of 10 - they dwindled over the summer (there was a fox around for a while) to just these 3. Both females take time on the nest, they both sit at night and the mama gets a turn off her sitting duty a couple times a day. They have laid probably 5 nests - so many would get up to 7 or 8 eggs, and then something would eate every egg in one night. The girls would find another spot, again and again...til finally, they began REALLY sitting on this nest of 7 eggs. In the beginning of this nesting, the ducks would lay an egg, and then visit the nest several hours a day to check and turn the eggs. They would return to the pond or coop at night, after carefully covering the eggs with hay and grass. After witnessing their first several failed attempts, and knowing we had oppossum and skunks around, we decided to collect the eggs when the ducks went in for the evening, and put them back in the morning before the mama's came back to lay again. In this way, we collected 10 fertile eggs that we planned on incubating, and the ducks ended up with 7 to sit on. Well, of our 10, there are 9 that are growing and viable...and the mama ducks have ended up with 2 shiny, hard big beautiful eggs that we hope will hatch for them. (the other 5 were discarded by the mama's over the past 2 weeks) With a little (ok, a lot of) luck, we think the incubated eggs will hatch within a day or so of the other 2, so maybe we will be able to give the duckings to a mama!

Garden, vineyard, baby ducks and baby chicks!




Too much time has passed since I wrote last!! The garden has exploded, the vineyard is FULL and beautiful, and we have ducklings being hatched. What to talk about first??


The garden...We have harvested beautiful romaine, leaf lettuce, beets, kale, collard greens, purple and white onions, garlic!, basil, strawberries, zucchini, yellow squash, snow peas, sugar snap peas, and now we are down to okra, and green beans. We just planted another batch of beets - oh, I forgot the corn! - and carrots, and we have tomatoes (lots of interesting varieties, including brown and white tomatoes), peppers and pumpkins still growing. The garlic is great - our neighbors at Best of What's Around grew LOTS of garlic....Matthew Holt said this is his 7th year I think for this garlic...this is just our first crop here. Every year, if you save and plant the garlic again and again, the bulbs will develop a distinct flavor unique to your yard, garden and soil type...no one else will have exactly the same flavor as their you! We are still of course attending the Scottsville Farmers Market every Saturday morning - this past week was just loaded with great stuff - including a very tasty granola made by a couple of young entrepeneurs...their free samples help their sales I am sure. :)
The vineyard...a little over an acre of Pinot Noir - not the best grape to grow inVirginia to be sure, but the original owners of the inn planted it over 20 years ago, and it still grows strong. We have the pleasure of Gabrielle Rausse as the man to tend the grapes and make our wine - who could ask for better?? The vineyard is gorgeous to stroll in the early morning, and late afternoon, and even in winter it is beautiful. We are planning to take out a few cedars beside the vines that, although they create a beautiful allee', house way too many birds and cast too many shadows. What began as a simple hedgerow 25 years ago is now a border of 30 foot trees - and it is time to remove some. I dream of paths between big hydrangeas and lilacs, that we can clip for flowers to keep in line.
I will post a few pitures in a week or so of our new little baby ducks and chicks -
Come see the glory of summer!

Monday, May 12, 2008

Scottsville Center for Arts and Nature

Almost forgot...the Honey Dewdrops played a benefit for the Scottsville Center for Arts and Nature...WOW! They won the latest 'Prairie Home Companion' competition for musicians...and they were amazing. So were the dancers and friends who performed with them...

The Center is being built on property nearly neighboring ours...trails connecting us are not out of the question - check them out at http://www.scottsvilleartsnature.org

May flowers already!!

What a glorious spring so far!! Except of course for the tornadoes and nickel-sized hail all round us last week...luckily for our peonies and iris, we didn't see any hail! The grass is growing so fast you can almost watch it...and everything is so GREEN.

Our little town had a meeting of more than a dozen people interested in 'local foodways'. There is a big idea circulating in Charlottesville about a multi-point need for our local food producers...a distribution center, processing/butchering/curing center, educational facilities/community kitchen, etc. We wanted to start to think about how Scottsville - with it's amazing history of agriculture and commerce, and current wealth of empty buildings - could play a role in this 'big picture'. For starters, our new Saturday Farmer's Market is going like mad! 2 weeks open, and it is already VERY strong. LOVE IT! Scottsville has acquired a $100k grant for a permanent farmer's market facility, and has the property set aside (exactly where the current THursday/saturday market is held under the tent). So, some of the discussion participants posed some bigger questions like - 'what is it that we WANT out of the market building?', and 'what role can we play?' We have a couple of great sites that could house 'satellite' distribution centers, or a retail space, or a community kitchen...and LOTS of great people to get involved with this. I would really like to see this happen - and my 'big idea' for High Meadows, as a non-profit garden/market/farm animal educational property as well as inn - could still fit right into this.

Since our gardens are so great, and we DO have a creek that flows into the James and the Chesapeake eventually - maybe our focus could be on JUST the water side of all this...could we show how to have gardens luch and pretty without chemical fertilizers, pesticides, etc. Can we show how to collect and use rainwater efficiently? What about wind/solar power for water pumps, etc. That side of responsible living, in addition to the chickens, goats, and other useful farm animals might make for a very interesting inn, and from Wednesdays through Fridays, maybe useful to local schools. Again, thoughts are still just floating around - nothing has come together yet as a formal 'mission statement' though I am getting closer!

For now, the ducks are happy, we are happy - and getting busier. Our guests continue to be interesting, well-read, informed and well-traveled people...just this weekend we had a couple get engaged in our gazebo, several others attending a wedding at Spring Hill (a 'commune' of sorts...I love the co-housing concept...Cobb Hill in Vermont!), and a couple who were making me drool with envy at their description of their trip to Portugal, in the wine country there and of the views of twinkling town lights over the vineyards that stretched as far as the eye could see in the river valley they were visiting. Which also happened to be in the port region, which I am sure made for some very nice wine drinking....but our conversation still kept bringing my thoughts back to little Scottsville - and the importance of local foods. The most memorable parts of their visit to Portugal was the food - local farmers, local foods, local cheeses and meats - the freshness was totally new for them, and very well-appreciated. Made me remember the beautiful cream from our friend's cow...and that if everyone did just a LITTLE bit to keep the food on their table as close to home as possible, it would make a difference in the big picture. I will continue to enjoy my mangoes in Virginia, of course - but no more store bought chicken eggs, thank goodness!

Monday, April 28, 2008

1st Herb Festival

The day could NOT have been better - for our first of what WILL be many,many more spring and fall Herb Festivals. Our vendors were terrific, we had Rowena Morrell (publicher of "In the Kitchen") do a cooking demonstration - and the weather held out until afternoon. We did close a bit early due to the HEAVY storms that came rolling in - but all in all, we had great feedback, and lots of customers. We bought a rainbarrell for the inn (today in this rain, we could use that 1500 gallon underground tank that I am dreaming of), a worm composing bin is on the way, and lots of great tomato, herb and perennial plants. Bill Bonwell (Stony Mountain Nursery) was here - he is such a great source for water gardens - and has given us LOTS of advice for our pond. My favorite goat lady was here (Gail Hobbs-Page of Caromont Farm) with lots of yummy samples, and I met several other people I know I will be running to again for plants!

A word about my current work-in-progress: I am exploring the possibilities of creating a non-profit educational farm/display gardens/exhibit space...and who knows what else...here on our property. There is such a diverse group of VERY active farmers in this area - all with incredible products, of the highest quality - yet I know they are so busy, they can scarcely take the time to give tours, speeches, and educate people like I know they yearn to be able to do. So - since we are used to having visitors, and we love it, why not take this great, central, easy-to-get-to location and use it for the community? I can see school groups coming during the week to tour the wetland area, demonstration dairy animals, chicken house, (maybe even a windmill/turbine?), I can see our inn guests on the weekends having MUCH to look at and explore, I can envision the Herb/Green festivals here on the grounds, maybe a farmstore/ u-pick berry farm, orchards - the list goes on and on. It is a big project - and I am just starting to wrap my head around the possibilities...and also to explore funding, conservation of the property, setting up a non-profit...all the things I know very little about. I think it may be a good direction to head - and it will end up giving the community of Scottsville a piece of their history preserved and taken care of forever - and available to everyone. I would hate to see this place someday just as a private home. It is so beautiful here, Peter & Jae did so much work to get listed on the National Registry of Historic Places...we want that work to be appreciated way into the future!

Monday, April 21, 2008

this weekend...and more

Getting ready for this Saturday - we are having our first - of what we hope will be - annual Spring Herb Festival. So far, considering it's our first attempt at this, it seems like it will be a wonderful day! A good amount of local vendors, lots of people calling and asking for directions and information...I hope we have at least 100 people turn out...in the fall, we'll do another one, focused a bit more on herb/plant/garden crafts - dried stuff I hope, jams, etc.

Also started plans for a 'Locavore Picnic Dinner'...not sure if I should do it on the 4th of July (it is SUCH a fun, classic, small-town day complete with parade and great fireworks over the river) or a day that won't already be loaded with fun...I am an excellent grill cook, and I love to smoke brisket, ribs, etc - AND we have a couple of wonderful local grass-fed beef producers, and of course Polyface farm is close by, and I get free-range chickens starting in May from a neighbor. I am sure the menu will be good - plenty of local wine and beer too! Maybe a table with community specialties? Giovanni is always cooking something wonderful, and Meredith makes an amazing eggplant dish to eat with fresh bread...the more I think about it, the better it sounds.

a year has passed here already!

It is difficult to believe that already we have been in this heaven for a bit over a year...still every day I look out over the back yard, the vineyard or the pond and I see how beautiful it all is. And how much more beautiful we want to make it...What started as the exact business we always wanted has turned into a whole lot more. This community, this place - I want to make sure that this land - even this little slice of 13 acres - is preserved forever. I want what we add to this landscape to be improvements that will last many lifetimes. There are so many choices: a wind turbine for power (we are on a hill with constant breezes), berry fields, and orchard, a dairy cow, goats, a pony (or 2), rabbits...I don't know where to start. So I just get up and do what is in front of me, or at least the least onerous choice of what's in front of me.

For instance - yesterday we added ducks to our pond. I am hoping for some help in clearing up many years of sccumulated debris and quickly spreading pondweeds...it was amazing how much life they added to what was (I thought) a very nice place already. We have a LOT of pondweeds that need to be brought under control; and we have been planting cattails, iris, and other wetland plants around the edges all spring - mostly to add some color and for filtering the stuff that flows down the hillsides and into the pond. It is springfed; and the little creek that runs out flows for about a half mile, then into a larger creek, then in another 100 yards or so, into the James River. So, we do our best to keep the water clean and chemical free. The fish and frogs are abundant, and now the ducks have added another dimension. True, the water is a bit muddier from their munching, and they aren't picky about what they step on, but eventually I think it will all even out, especially as we take down the weedy saplings that keep dropping leaves into the pond, and replace them with plants better suited (ong term) to such a wet habitat...it looks better now than last summer, and it will look even better in the years to come.

I like sending guests down there in the woods for a walk, and now they have something to sit and watch for a while!

Oh, and we got 2 eggs this morning from them! Add that to our chicken eggs - and breakfast just got even more interesting!