Happy New Year!

Well another year has come and gone. Tonight we will have our famous New Year's eve party with a pianist and violinist from 7h00 to 10h00 pm, a six course dinner featuring Neil's home made ravioli stuffed with duck confit and seared foie gras, blinis and caviar, Angus filet mignon, Artic char with lobster tail and much more.

From 10h00 to 2h00 we will have dancing in our pub with our DJ Michel and of course bubbly and party favors will be available for all!

I have a feeling we will have to keep an eye on the new hot tub...

A few guests may be celebrating the new year under the stars with the deer watching!

I can just imagine what the deer must be thinking... "what strange creatures we are"!

This year the xmas partie's where tame compared to other year's. I think everyone was on extra good behavior not to give companies the excuse not to have one. We had ours on Sunday Dec 21st. Of course it was in the middle of a snow storm once again so a few people did not make it. We usually have our party after the holidays but this year with everyone going away and our closing from January 5th to the 15th for some painting and small renovations, we decided to have our party in December.

I will keep you updated as the renovations go. We will be redoing room 109 since it is one of the most popular rooms. Because of this, we have found that the wallpaper has actually shrunk and looks terrible due to the fireplace that makes the room so dry. The Wallpaper company takes no responsability of course, so we will assume the cost of this clean up ourselves.

I was not in favor of wallpaper to begin with. Unfortunatly when we have our rooms inspected for classification (1 to 4 stars) They give us extra points if we have wallpaper. Since we have woodburning fireplaces in 18 of our 24 rooms you can imagine the smoke dammage to the walls and ceilling which creates a need for us to paint some rooms on a yearly basis. We also have burns on the carpet and usually within 24 hours of the installation! I try not to cry when this happens.

you cannot be to materialistic when you share an Inn with guests. things break, burn, and dissapear but for the most part guests are actually very careful. After 27 years in this business I can still say that I am passionate about Innkeeping and would not want to do anything else!

So Thank You for giving me a reason to get up each and every morning. I look forward to sharing many more memories with you in 2009!

Happy New Year!

First snow fall of the season!

well, what a surprise to see all that white stuff this morning.

Last night this Innkeeper was rudely jolted out of bed by the fire alarm. Try and get back to sleep after that!

Because it is so early in the season and the trees are still full of leaves, all this snow was too much weight for them and many simply fell over on to the phone and electrical wires. No electricity means the ventilation fans in the kitchen stop working and smoke and heat start to accumulate and after a certain point will set off the fire alarm system.

Within five minutes we had the generators going and buckled down for a long night. By morning not only were we still out of electricity but we discovered the phone lines were down as well. Does this remind you of last year?

Well by noon the phones were back up and working and by 2h00 the electricity was back on. I managed to take these pictures around 11h00 am, because honestly I cannot recall so much snow before Halloween.

This has put a snag on a project that started today. We are installing a spa outdoors so our guests can enjoy a hot tub under the stars while enjoying the deer eating at the feeders. Excavation started this morning and the installation of the spa should be done in the next ten days. Hopefuly by the November 15th, we will have this new experience to offer our overnight guests.

Well I guess there is no getting away from it...Christmas is just around the corner and with that our famous christmas parties.

I should have lots of juicy stuff to share with you in the coming weeks!

Stay tuned...

Dine with your DEAR and our DEER!

Wine anyone?

Now that our wedding salon is behind us, we are now preparing for our next big event which is Valentine's day.

We have a few rooms left on Friday and Saturday and a few tables left at the Inn for dinner on the 14th, 15th and 16th.

We also have our brunch with sleigh ride on Sundays.

February guarantees you will see the deer feeding from the dinning room, so join us for a romantic evening of good food and wine.

Out of town on Valentine's? Then offer a gift certificate that can be used for dinner, the SPA, sugar shack or a get-a-way at a later date. You will get brownie points for taking care of this and having it delivered by mail or hiding it somewhere in the house for her to find on Valentine's day.

A picture is worth a thousand words!

Well Sunday was cancelled! Only the in house guests spent the morning and then decided to brave the storm and head home. One couple remained to celebrate their 30th anniversary. For two weeks now we have been doing nothing but shoveling parking lots and roof tops. People do not realise that this much snow is very heavy and can cause structural damage.

The maintenance staff are exausted as is my husband Gerry who is the one in the snow blower.

Monday morning is spent cleaning up this mess so we can get back to business.

The funniest thing is people think that because we live in the country that our roads are blocked during and shortly after a snow storm. Well I have news for you, Our roads are actually better and easier to drive through because the when the plow passes, there are no cars in the way so it is cleaned instantly. The cities have much, much worse conditions than us.

Keep that in mind in winter, there is no problem with parking or the roads in the country, so what are you waiting for to get out of the city???

by the way, I thought my birds were eating quite alot of bird seed? well I have discovered the culprit who has been emptying my feeders. The squirrels have been getting the blame but look who I found at the feeders this morning???

Enough already!

We are having quite the snow storm this Monday morning! Our roads are blocked so I am doing the cooking for the customers that are snowed in since the staff cannot make it. I still managed to get a photo of deer feeding at 7h00 am. I am no longer wondering if we will have a white xmas!

The sleigh rides were on yesterday at brunch and a photographer from the Montreal Gazette came by for some pictures to complement an article that will be in this Thursday's edition in the west Island section. A journalist came by last month to do an article on the SPA and Inn.
The xmas parties are going full swing and the staff have managed to keep all under control. I find this time difficult because the clients that we have are guests of their company and may not appreciate what we have to offer.Many have never stepped foot in an Inn and expect room service at 2h30 in morning. I also find many decorative elements of the inn disappear at this time of year. I guess some folks figure that they are included in the price of the room!
Last year we had one couple who drank so much that we had to close the room for a week in order to repair the damage. Of course the company had to pay the bill. They did not reserve again this year.

I wonder if I will be serving lunch as well as dinner this evening! I hope the snow lets up so the staff can give me a break!

Ba Humbug!

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!

Well there is nothing like a snow storm to make everything white. I love it when we wake up to the surprise. There is something magical about our world turning white overnight. It is also so fresh and clean.

I was born in February, so I guess you can call me a snow baby. I love the winter much more than summer. I have so much more energy and when in need of a quick pick me up, a short brisk walk all bundled up is an incredible way to rejuvenate yourself.

We are feeding the birds now and have all kinds of blue jays, chickadees, a cardinal and many others. We will start feeding the deer any day now that the snow has arrived. I like the fact that for each season we have another reason for people to join us at the Inn.

We are now ready for Xmas, the decorations are up and the holiday parties have started. we now have dancing on the weekend for those who want to celebrate.

It is the only time of the year that we open the pub to the public for dancing. the rest of the year it is used for private functions. We will be open all through Xmas until January 2nd. then we will close for a week to do some renovations like changing the dinning room carpet, painting the kitchen and changing our door locks on the rooms.

There is never a dull moment at the Inn.