Well, this workshop has gotten off to a wonderful start. Don’t forget, Sharon will be teaching in the Winter as well.

Let the fun begin. Wish you were here.

John, our head waiter, has given us a gift. The corkscrew from the Chanteclaire, the restaurant our families owned together. My father was the entertainment, the piano player, and sometimes the bartender. So, John thought I should have it.

The LaPolla Family Corkscrew has finally returned back to its rightful place. 😉 Now I can rest.

Thanks John.

InnSane

This house is so solid, that neither of us heard the rain outside. So, I’m dressed in swimware, waiting to go down to the pool to have coffee with my wife. Well, with a towel around my neck, I guess I’ll have coffee in the parlor.

The saga continues. Feooor, feeeoooor. (OK. Maybe not a Norse saga but let’s get on with it.)

As you all know, Mr. Spot flapped his ears too hard one day and broke a blood vessel in one and it puffed up with blood. Seizing he opportunity, he renamed himself Puff Doggy.

He got a lot of publicity and mileage out of that name change. And just as it was becoming stale and his ear was deflating, he switched to P. Diggy.

Now that his ear has drained and left behind some clotted blood and made it a scrunched up knarly affair, more of a Spaniels ear than a flat, thin, slick Ridgeback ear, he wants to change his name again, this time to Puppmaster Crunch. If you saw his ear, you wouldn’t be asking about the Crunch part. Speaking of Gnarly, check out the Gnarly News.

We are looking forward to Sharon Carson’s workshop this weekeend. We are packed again. This weekend we were packed, not completely full but besides the people hear for Litha and for the sweat lodge we had some regulars and some first timers. We enjoyed this weekend quite a bit.

We wish you were here.

That last comment is directed to my mother-in-law and any other person who would like to comment.

This morning, I was related to Kim the email I had gotten from my mother-in-law and musing on her handle. I wondered out loud what it would have been like to be in your twenties in the twenties, not that my mother-in-law or even my father is that old, and then I moved on to what people will say of us.

“How wonderful it must have been to be young and in a live air in the early 2000s in the old US of A.” Yes, that’s how people will talk then. “How strange not to be able to choose your liver.”

“Ooohie. What do you mean not to be able to choose your liver? How can that be?”

“Well, they’d be born with it, you see.”

“Born?”

“Never mind. Well, how strange it must be to have dogs as pets.”

“Dogs, they’re not just for breakfast any more.”

“Right. No liver-choice and dogs as pets.”

“Pets? As in my pet Octo? Come here Rover. That’s a good squid.”

“He’s not a squid, you know.”

“I just say that to annoy him.”

“Can you imagine your strongest expression words being ‘Dash it’ and ‘Yikes’.” So, OK. They’ll mix up their times and countries a little bit. Just blame it on PJ Wodehouse. OK. People will be stupider.

So, OK. you have some time on your hands if you are an innkeeper. I also need to talk about Spot and his ear. That’ll be another post. I may have to go to breakfast now. The Arms is waking up.

Click on the green comments word at the bottom of each post. Type your comment in and then choose an identity and hit the blue button.

If you don’t have a blogger account, then choose other or anonymous.

Here’s an example of a comment screen. This is the comment screen for It’s raining, it’s pouring, whaBAM! entry.

A new record. The definition of a summer shower. And now the sum comes out. Beautiful.

Well, Mr. Spot and I got caught in a downpour. He wanted to go out to sniff. The rain drops were huge and now that we made it back inside he’s sleeping. Mr. Spot decided to go back in rather than wait with me under a tree, it was so funny, he slunk back in, carefully placing each paw

WHABAM! Lights went out and for some reason the computer was NOT plugged into the UPS. Now it is and so…

on the ground trying to minimize the damp-toes effect. We sat on the porch for a little while drying off.

whabam! HAHAHA UPS WORKS! 😉

The rain is now letting up. Summer thunder storms. That’s why we came back to New York. This is great. Plus my new grass seed gets watered. Looks like we picked the best week to go to Bar Harbor. It’d been raining all the week before we got there and started raining again the day we left.

Remember, I fixed the comment problem. You can comment now.

Or perhaps Alban Heruin is better. Well, you might be asking yourself right now, what are they babbling about. (And I say they advisedly because you don’t know if it is me or Kim or me or Mark or me or me or Mark or Kim writing this. As if. ;=)

We had a large group who came up for a summer solstice party. Though, I don’t think it’s a Celtic solstice they were celebrating but rather more along the lines of what I remember from Sweden during midsummer. A more Swedish-esqe midsommar.

In Sweden, they say that during svenska midsommarfesten (svenska == Swedish midsommar is midsummer, fest == party/festival/holiday, en == the) the sun dances in the sky. In parts of Sweden, the sun does not set during this holiday. The joke is, that after staying up all day and night partying, that’s part of the tradition, that it is your eyes dancing not the sun. Actually, that’s one of the better Swedish jokes I’ve heard. 😉

The other group that came up, somewhat smaller, was up here for a sweat lodge ceremony. I know less about what type of sweat lodge this was. Here’s one reference I cannot vouch for but they may have been doing something more Scandinavian for all I know. Here’s another reference for those wishing to do some more Swedish or Finnish like sweating. And yes, the Swedes do take Finnish Sauna sometimes.

Well, this was a fun weekend. Wish you were here.

Every inn, restaurant, pub, bar or any type of eating establishment has a sanitizer. Its job is not to dish wash, for that we have a human dishwasher, rather it is to sanitize the already clean plates. That is, take cleanliness to another level.

However, for the last 7 or more years, there has been a problem with it. In damp weather, or so it seemed, the sanitizer always had problems and didn’t start or went crazy. This year, I put weather stripping on it and the problem went away.

Then the problem came back. I used the blow drier on the machine, advise given to me by the previous owners, and that seemed to work.

I just found out that it isn’t the blow drier that is doing the trick, but rather it is putting the draw that one has to pull out to use the blow drier back into its proper position. Just today, I couldn’t start it but when I moved the draw with the electronics to a suitably aligned configuration, (channeling Jeeves again), lo and behold, it worked.

Well, one of our fans wrote in to tell us not to write so much about the food of Bar Harbor but the mystique.

Well, Bar Harbor has mists for sure but mystique? For that you’ll have to come to the Greenville Arms.

Just to make sure that we know what we are talking about here:

mystique

An aura of heightened value, interest, or meaning surrounding something, arising from attitudes and beliefs that impute special power or mystery to it: the cowboy mystique; the mystique of existentialism.

OK. That’s what we are going about here. Greenville Arms used to be the home of William Vanderbilt who the rest of the family pushed up the Hudson River until he landed here. That’s mystique for you. Check out our history page.

And dear readers, please use the powers of comments rather than email us directly. That way other people can flame you. 😉 I mean write back. And we do get an email as a result of the comment, by the way.

Have fun.

We decided to come home via Highway 1, along the Maine coast. We stopped in Camden. We stopped in Kennebunk and Kennebunkport. Actually, we didn’t really stop in Kennebunk. We sort of rolled through.

We ate our way along the Maine coast and had some fun. Spot loved it. I think he applied for Inn Dog at the balance Rock behind our backs. He says he wouldn’t mind being their Inn Dog. The only reason that he didn’t follow through was of the commute.

I complained about the over sensitive, strobe light house effect of the auto-spot and they replaced the whole contraption with a low wattage bulb that’s on all the time and doesn’t try to signal ships in the harbor. Now that’s service.

We went to Michelle’s. That’s a pretty good restaurant. I had the Steak Tartar, as you’d expect, and Kim had the Fois Gras, again, no surprises there. The tartar was interesting. Some sort of tomato hot sauce, like a fra diablo or fra diavolo. It reminded me of a spicy shrimp coctail sauce.

Then I had the Lobster Thermador. That was pretty good. Kim had something else. I forgot. No surprises. Then we ordered the souffle. I tell you, I think I’ll have to bag of chocolate next time. That sounded great. The souffle was good but I thought I was ordering a Godiva Chocolate souffle and it turned out only to be the liquer. Bad move on my part. Bag of chocolate. Just keep saying it to yourself.

Three nights was more than enough time to see Bar Harbor. So this is my last missive, my absolutely last epistle from Bar Harbor. We’ve enjoyed it and have taken notes. I’m def. going to do that cold butternut squash soup. We’ll never just do a buffet.

We didn’t see Acadia and next time that’ll be top of the agenda. I also didn’t get to see puffins so that’ll be up there. When are we coming back? Hmm. With the workshop schedule expanding, winter workshops, fiber art workshops, etc. Probably not for a long time. This winter we have other plans.

It’ll be good to get back to Greenville and some quiet. It’s quiet here in a touristy way. 😉 Spot has enjoyed himself and the staff loved it.

Well, this is The Keepers signing off from The Opera House in Bar Harbor Maine.

Well, this place can email pastries. It says so on a sign. It’s called the Opera House. And indeed one of the wooden signs says “Email Pasteries” Dang. That’s technology for you.

Also, around the corner there is an ice cream and chocolate place that has We Mail. I wonder what that is?

Having Fun.

Kim is still shopping and having, I think, a good time. I just went into the Cadillac North Face store and got two pairs of pants for $84. Not too bad. Kim went to the Cadillac Mountain Store and got some clothing. I left her in the Cadillac North Face store. I was briefly tempted to buy a great pair of pants, $80, in the Cadillac Patagonia store. This starting to become clear here? But they weren’t that great and didn’t fit that well.

Kim just came in. Bye.

Well, we ate at the Donohue pub for lunch which was OK but we had a fantastic time at the Havana. Yahoo gives it a user rating of five stars.

I wouldn’t say that this was fusion of any sort but rather more like my cooking at the Arms. That is to say, I have 3 main dishes that are Italian, because this year the theme is Italian. But the Sole Almondine is very north western Italian (French) and the Hasselback potatoes are very, very northern Italian (Germany/Switzerland) and the Shikabob is very southern Italian (Persia) and the Soy Maple Salmon is, well, if you believe the Havana’s Chef Cuban. (They do a Maple Soy Porkchop.) Ha! It’s not. It’s a New England Japanese/Chinese fusion. Nah! It’s what it is. (Actually, he doesn’t try to pull a fast one. The chef does own up to the fact that it isn’t all Cuban or even Latin American or even South American.)

Also the corn bread at the Havana is very good. The butter is out of this world. Get the spring rolls with the truffled sauce. Nice. The spinach salad is as good as mine.

So, it isn’t fusion but the chef, who goes to Brasil every year, does Latin American dishes with other stuff thrown in. Nice. As a matter of fact, he does a cold butter nut squash soup, just like mine but cold, no truffle oil but heavy cream with fried plantain and crab. I thought the crab detracted so I am going to bring it to the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops at the Greenville Arms 1889 Inn without the crab and with some basil to make it more Italian. 😉

Well, now that we made it all the way from California to Maine with Mr. Spot, we are done. Tomorrow we’re coming home. Ciao.

Well, Kim and I went walking in the rain. blah, tum dee blah, pina colada, blah, blah walks in the rain…

It’s raining here at Bar Harbor. We have booked a ride on a scooner called the Rachel B. Jackson. We are going on a sunset cruise with Spot. $30 per adult and good dogs are free. That’s what decided us on the ship. That good dogs got to go free. The ship is a scooner replica. Their print brochure is better than their web brochure, btw. So you should request it. It is supposed to stop raining by the time we go on the cruise.

Kim is happy to sit around the hotel and knit. She is now thinking very hard about doing a knitter’s week at the Arms for the Hudson River Valley Art Workshops. Knitter’s Week, just like Painter’s Week. We watched SG1 last night. That was good and I saw Iron Chef, the original version, for the first time. That was interesting.

While sitting around is great, we don’t do enough of it, I wanted to go DO something. Puffins are out because of the rain.

She’s shopping for pants and clothing. Kim packs light. We never used to and now we re doing more of it. But it’s tough having only one pair of pants when it is raining. We DO have our bathing suits and the pool at the Balance Rock Inn is heated, not super warm, but warm enough, we need something to change into for the sail. Hey, they have an LL Bean super store here if you can believe it.

I think, even without Spot, the Balance Rock Inn is the place to stay. It’s warm, friendly and comfortable as well as elegant. Plus the view is grand.

Dmitri has been staying with us at the Arms while he has been readying the church. Readying for what? I’m not sure he knows that. More later.

Well, I’m running up a tab here and I better leave. Actually, my tab wont be that big but I’m nervous about Kim. She’s been in that yarn shop too long and I have to rescue her from Yarn Temptation. 😉

Here we are in beautiful Bar Harbor, Baa ha-ba, Maine having a relaxing time of it. The staff is friendly here and Spot has already made friends. People love him. As a matter of fact we’ve left him in the room and informed the respection staff of our cell phone numbers in case he barks. The receptionist asked us if it were OK if she went into the room. We said yes and could she sit with him? (I said that jokingly.) She said that she’d bring him down to reception and have him sit with her. He’ll like that.

Spot’s been looking for the inn dog at Balance Rock but has not found him. He wanted to compare notes, I guess. Bar Harbor is dog friendly. The Balance Rock especially so. As a matter of fact, it is 4 diamonds and likes dogs. Not just allows visitors to have dogs, but the staff loves them. They especially love Spotter-dog.

Well, Balance Rock is situated on a beautiful part of the coast. Right on the water front. The http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifrooms are large and spacious with a too small hot tub. 😉 We have a decent view of the water. One of the major drawbacks to room 303 is that the motion sensitive light outside our door keeps flashing on and off even if there are no people out there. I’ve had to put a blanket up to block the glaring light. A blanket, doubled, plus a robe. I think I may have to dismantle it tonight. Kim isn’t bothered. She doesn’t even want to think about changing rooms. She loves this one. So far, with the improvised drapes, we’re good.

The breakfast buffet was OK. I am doubly glad that at the Arms we have a buffet, with 4 or 5 kinds of fruit, granola, yogurt, cerial, you name it plus a menu for ordering. I am also glad we have an attentive waiter, John. These things are lacking here, especially John. The rooms are nicely appointed. We have a crazy Sleep Comfort bed that allows Kim to put her side on soft and my side I put on medium. However, when I roll over to her side, it feels like quicksand. Half of me on the firm ground, the other half in the marsh. However, the room has two sitting nooks and is nicely carpeted.

Well, it is relaxing. What have we done today you ask? Well, we got up and had some coffee, paper cups, and then sat outside on the patio overlooking the pool, an expansive lawn down to a border of perenial flowers in a boxed planter that borders a gravel path that borders the harbor. We have a great view of the harbor. I think I’ve mentioned this.

Well, the three of us, don’t forget about Mr. Spot, sat outside and sipped coffee (I had a packet of hot chocolate in mine. Yum.) looking at the harbor. Well, looking at the pool, then the lawn, then the flowers and then the rock beachesque thingy and then the harbor. A beautiful setting.

After our breakfast of brown and serve sausages, nicely scrambled eggs, beautiful fruit, tasty, though I doubt homemade breads, muffins and such, with fine jams and lemon curds and creamcheese, (oooh, a dog just walked into the internet cafe where I am sitting. I think I’ll bring Mr. Spot next time. He’s a good dog.) Kim had the strawberries, we went for a walk on the gravel path and looked at the fine houses that overlooked the harbor. We walked all the way to the end of the path, up the road leading back to the village and Main Street and guess what was at the end of the road, a Cuban restaurant. Kim wants to go. To tell the truth, I’m read. I had a two pound lobster (lobstah) last night and it wasn’t that great. Good but not perfect New England great. Not sweet enough and I think over cooked. It was big, though.

Our ride here took about nine hours. And we stopped in Grey at the Grey House of Pizza where we proceeded to have Grey Sausage Parmagian and Grey Veal Parmagian sausages that tasted gray. The floors were dirty and I shudder to think of the kitchen. I avoided looking at it through the service door. The place hadn’t been bussed and the walls were a little dingy.

At the Grey House of Pizza, they had a gumball machine that had black gumballs in it with winner printed on them in white. I had a feeling. I knew that if I were to put a quarter in the gumball machine that a black one would come out. Mind you, we’d already eaten our sandwiches, which were good with crunchy, toasted hero/hoggie/sub bread even if the sausages tasted a little care worn, and we were full. (The guy who, I presumed, owned the place, a young, dark, tall curly headed fellow in his twenties gave us a cup of water for Spot. Nice Grey people.)

The trip was beautiful, even if there was construction on I-95 that probably added an hour to our trip. Now I am sitting in Bar Harbor’s internet cafe having a Mochacino Email and blogging to you. So far, very relaxing. Too bad we had to close the inn. We’ve already turned away customers. Sigh. But let me tell you, this time off is sweet. Kim is off at a yarn shop while I put the finishing touches on this post.

I hope you all come visit us at the Arms and take an art workshop and have fun with us. Bar Harbor is great but nothing beats the Arms. Lobstah is fine but you can’t beat my stacoto or my maple soy salmon with a stick. (Oh, the cuban place here has Maple Soy Porkchops. Sounds like a dish for next year.)

See you soon. Stay classy Greenville. 😉 (Ron Burgundy: The lengend of an anchorman is worth watching just for the newsteam doing Afternoon Delight. Classic. Oh, and it’s worth watching just for Brick. Funny. Other than that, not worth watching… much.)

It’s in the furnace room now. I’ve called Hobart and we are waiting. Barbara says that it makes the best bread I’ll ever bake.

We will have to paint the urn before we display it. The Great Mixer will have to be derustified.

One of “the Stevens girls” dropped by. She’s living in Massachusetts. She dropped by to see how we were doing and to talk about the inn and to see the place again.

She also gave us the urn that used to sit on the front lawn and her old Hobart mixer that she used to bake breads with. I am overjoyed to have the mixer. I called Hobart up and they’ll be sending a repair man. The urn will be put out on the front lawn again and filled with flowers. She’ll be auctioning off the rest of her antiques. She gave them to us as a house warming present. Kim loves the urn. I do too.

Also, Heather came by with her sister and father for father’s day. They had breakfast. Cute kid. She’s my prep chef and does a great job. She’ll be leaving for college next year.

Three deer came up on the front lawn. That’s a powerful sentence.

Up till now, I’ve been saying that Greenville isn’t that much different from Los Altos, CA. After all, Los Altos is wooded. Los Altos Hills has mountain lions. Los Altos has orchards, vineyards, woods, fields, hills dales. Greenville is close to Albany. It’s close to NYC.

But CA doesn’t have deer that come up on your lawn and hang out. I took some pictures. I called up to Kim but she didn’t see them from the third floor window and by the time she got down they’d flown, fast flowing, running motion that you’d think was low-level acrobatic flying if only it was a few feet higher in the air.

I’m waiting to see our bear. Where is it? Or is it myth?

We just got some great journals in. Too late to put in the rooms for this class but they bought them as they left.

They’re great journals. We still have the communal journals in the studio.

Oh, John tried to sneak out without setting up for tomorrow’s deuce. Boy, that guy. 😉

Some people love my salads, especially my tomato salad, so much that they’d like to have just bread and salad. Bread, salad and wine!

Interesting idea but then you’d miss the sole almondine, not to mention the Hassleback potatoes. And by the way, the southwest omlet was not spicy. And not that salty.

Not to mention the stracoto.

This story of the inn and the art workshops would not be complete without going into detail about the Old Church. When we arrived here from California, the rumors started flying.

The one that surfaced most often was that we had Bought The Church. The church was an old Methodist church that someone had bought to create a wine bar. However in the C&Cs was a restriction that said you could not have another religion practice there and that there was to be no drinking on the premises. Well, that sort of left the owner in a lurch and for the next umpteem years, he had tried to sell it, over and over again.

He tried to sell it to the previous owners of the Greenville Arms and Hudson River Valley Art Workshops. However, he had wanted too much. About $150K. Plus, the church needed about another $200K at least.

No matter how we battled this rumor, no matter how much money we spent on fixing up the inn, it kept coming up. Here’s an example conversation:

“So, I heard you bought the inn,” one Greenville Residence.

“No, we didn’t,” we reply.

“Deal fell through? Too bad.”

“No. We never intended to buy the church.”

“Too bad. Better luck next time.”

And so on.

The owner of the Westerner said the same thing. And I told him that no, we hadn’t bought the church, instead, we bought the Westerner. That kind of set him back. (Actually, that’s what I wish I had said. Rather, I said we had bought Bryant’s, the shopping plaza that has Bryant’s/Grand Union.) Anyway, I tried to get Rod Skidmore and some others to go to the Westerner and ask the owner if it were true that Kim and I had bought his store.

Well, that’s my first installment about Dmitri. I have to go make bread so you’ll have to wait to see where this is actually going.

Well, Spot is doing very well. He’s extra silly for the most part but he is healthy and happy and looking forward to our trip to Ba Haba.

He gets lonely. So don’t forget to pet him when you see him. He loves that. He loves treats even more.

Well, just one more day, lunch, dinner, breakfast, and then they are all gone. Gone. Sniff. Then we go to Ba Haba. 😉

Certainly, this group of travelers and sketchers were an interesting crowd. We had some real Italians from the Pittsburgh. 😉 I kept on asking them if the food was like what Mama used to make. Usually they said yes or that the recipe was different.

We had some philosophical discussions about spaghetti and causality. You’d think they were computer scientist the way they talked about dining and philosophers. 😉 (I couldn’t help my self, Edsger .)

Go see the Haunted Studio.

And now it is raining. What glorious weather.

as well as the profile problem.

Comment well. Enjoy.

InnSane

Finally had a moment in the last two days to finish planting all of the new perennials that I bought at Storys for the pool planter. The pool planter is a former kiddie pool that the Dalton’s turned into a planter. I’ve seen only pictures of how this planter looked in full bloom and of course Tish had created a magnificent display of annuals.

I decided to go the perennial route, though, just because I like perennials! I did include a few snapdragons and would have included zinnias, but did not see any of the varieties that I like at Storys. Maybe another year I’ll have try growing some from seeds, as I have in the past.

I can’t tell you what I’ve planted yet because I need to go out there and record the correct names of the plants. I’m terrible with plant names. But the look will be completely different – a more English Cottage garden look (my favorite). Someday I’d like to get some sort of fountain or scuplture to put in the center of the pool planter. I was reading in Fine Gardening about Victorian gardens and it said that during that time period circular gardens and fountains were popular. I’ve got lots of ideas — only time and finances will tell!

The perennials that I previously planted along the south side of the Carriage House are doing well and starting to bloom. The roses that I planted in the front of the Main Inn are blooming as well — fabulous bright flowers. (I’m sure the baby robins are enjoying the view!) The peony that I planted in the middle of the daffidil garden and already bloomed and then dropped its petals! That was quick. Probably because it is lonely there by itself. I’ll get more later to keep it company.

The cherry trees are now safe behind their fences. Hopefully they will soon be above deer nibbling height.

InnSane

No puedo mandarle un email porque lo bouncear. Gracias.

InnSane

That’s not the recipe I use, btw. Mine is simpler. We have two Italians visiting, I think from PA, Paulo and Paula. Paula’s mother makes the peppers only with the bread crumb stuffing, no sausage. I like it that way too but too many people complain that it is too much bread. Including Kim. Well, people, adding half an Italian sausage doesn’t make it that much less bread. ;_)

Well, Lou Lehrman is teaching his course. And what a fun course.

I just haven’t had time to blog. My computer with Windows2000 on it got trashed. Virus most probably. I have to reinstall as soon as I find my disks. Dang.

Here’s an interesting tid bit. I forgot. Anyway, do you know what stotting is? Or prinking? I’m reading the salmon of doubt. I must say, I didn’t know what prinking was. Nor, I think, did Adams. Writing in if you know what prinking is.

Ah the tid bit. I did the pot pies again. And again people are saying they should be main course, center of plate, material. OK people. You win. I’ll not serve them as apps.

Well, maybe not as interesting as tid bittish.

Oh, we have many people signing up already for 2006. Yes, enrollment is open. However, do sign up for 2005. Plenty of classes and time left.

InnSane

Charles gave us a beautiful still life. How kind of him. It is hanging in the parlour.

This class has been enjoyable. See you later, folks.

Yeah, and I decided at the last minute to make bao. That is, Chinese steamed buns. Nice. No filling.

So, on the spur I did

0. Bao
1. Easter Pie
2. Chinese Chicken Salad with a killer peanut sauce
3. My famous waffles, black cherry ice cream and chocolate sauce

I also have a bunch of pot pies in the works. I’m making, for app or main course about 20 8″ pot pies. They freeze.

I think this spur of the moment menu was good for the hot weather. It was in the low 80’s today. Air conditioning, especially in the art studio and bed rooms and dining room is wonderful. Too bad there isn’t any in the kitchen. Just a fan as big as a jet engine. 😉

Well, for all the countrified atmosphere here, if I can go to the local market and get Hosin Sauce and sesame oil, well, need I say more.

Tonight, Easter Pie and Chinese Chicken Salad. It’s a tad hot right now, nothing outrageous, but not the day for stracoto.

Well, I’ve gone pie crazy. I’m going to make chicken pot pie tonight. I already made a bunch of Easter pies. I’ll serve those tomorrow and I think I’ll make Chinese chicken salad tonight.

Wow. I’ve gone over the pie crust edge. Next, cold soups.

Sounds almost like a children’s story. Well, the artists came with 3,4,5 large canvases, 24 X something-4, and used them up in the first day making very beautiful paintings.

Everyone was astonished. No ones expected to finish 3 paintings in the first day, especially not of that dimension.

Charles had them bring house painting brushes. That combined with a palate knife and other assorted brushes did the trick. Stroke, stroke and the painting was done. 😉 Well, maybe a little more work.

InnSane

Charles Gruppe’s class has been finding it’s own painting site. We have given them sites to chose from but instead they’ve been coming up with their own. All of these sites they’ve found on the spur of the moment.

Well, this gives us a chance to find even more painting sites for people. Go big people. Enjoy. 🙂

How’s that Francine?

Well, this is a place holder. Kim is supposed to write about the huge snapping turtle we wrestled out of the pool together. It was a big one. We think she laid eggs in one of our flower planters.

Kim, take it from here.

Well, this is freaky. My parents owned a restaurant in Carle Place/Westbury on Old Westbury Road called the Chanteclaire. I think my mom stil has the matches. John, the head waiter here, parents owned a restaurant on Old Westbury Road called the Chateclaire as well. They sold it in the early sixties.

At first we thought, maybe my parents bought it from his parents, Clem and Claire. But no, I called my mother up. Clem had called my father, Vinny, up to see if my dad wanted to open a restaurant. Well, my mother and father opened one with Clem and Claire. They wound up selling it a year or so later.

Now John works for us here at the arms. Is this freaky or what?

InnSane