Transitioning to Fall at the Rivertown Inn

Give me the end of the year an’ its fun 
When most of the plannin’ an’ toilin’ is done; 
Bring all the wanderers home to the nest, 
Let me sit down with the ones I love best, 
Hear the old voices still ringin’ with song, 
See the old faces unblemished by wrong, 
See the old table with all of its chairs 
An’ I’ll put soul in my Thanksgivin’ prayers.

                                 Edgar A. Guest

It’s the 29th of October, 2012….the day is gray, crisp and beautiful, and a warm soup is definitely in order.  And finally….finally….I’m back to writing my blog.  I love writing it – though I struggle with the technical details more than I care to admit.  I’m determined to climb this mountain; you’ll be seeing much more going forward.  I’ve got people…you know who you are…and with such fantastic support I have every confidence I’ll soon have this completely understood.

Every season has its own beauty, but none inspires me like fall.  This Edgar Guest poem speaks so eloquently of Thanksgiving, and for me it means my boys all come home from college in just a few weeks. Sitting around the table seeing both the old and young is the very soul of the season.  I can hardly wait…having all three of them home again at one time completely fills me up.

At the Rivertown Inn we’re getting ready for the beautiful season in lots of ways.  Chef Ray Remler has created an extraordinary 2013 cooking class schedule and we’re finalizing the details now.  These classes are consistently filling up, and guests love them.  Unlike many we cap the participants at 6 so you truly experience the preparation of each dish.  Have you been?  We also offer private cooking classes: assemble your book club, family or friends and work out the details with Ray for a memorable afternoon you’ll all love.  We’ll post the schedule on our website soon.  What a wonderful family gift or team building event!

The month of November is a wonderful opportunity to purchase the gift of a night at the Rivertown Inn for 25% off.  When you subscribe to our e-newsletter  you can take advantage of this month-long offer for any main house suite or bedchamber.  The details are all there….check it out today. You’ll surely be rewarded with the recipient’s gratitude all year long.  This offer is good through the entire month of November, and there is no limit to the number of gift certificates you can purchase at this rate.

I am so grateful to our entire Rivertown Inn staff for their dedication, professionalism and hard work; and to our new gardener Gail for her enthusiasm and artistry.  We’re putting the gardens to bed for the season, and the Winter transition is in full swing.  The fountains will be shut off later this week and the warm, luxurious smells of cinnamon and allspice will be drifting from the ovens soon.  Chef Ray’s daily cookies will soon take a holiday turn; they’re always made with fresh, healthy ingredients so they’re even more enjoyable than your average cookie this time of year.  The fireplaces are all ready to warm you, and the ambience at the inn will give you reason to slow down and enjoy the beauty of the season.

Enjoy a slideshow of the fall gardens transitioning to winter….seriously enjoy it….because I cannot even tell you what went in to figuring out how to do a slideshow on WordPress.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

I hope to see you soon at the Rivertown Inn.  Sign up for our e-newsletter to take advantage of our special deals, and be the first to know about cooking classes, special events, and Rivertown Inn news and Stillwater happenings you may enjoy.  Thanks for reading  my blog; I can assure you the posts will be more savvy and fun as time goes on.

Now what’s in the wine cellar….

A Rivertown Inn Welcome…..

“Since time is the one immaterial object which we cannot influence
Neither speed up nor slow down
Add to nor diminish
It is an imponderably valuable gift.”

Maya Angelou

Thanks to garden diva Shari Pope the Rivertown Inn gardens are always meticulously and beautifully appointed.  Her creativity and artistic flair are evident everywhere you look, and truly capture your attention when you stay at the inn.  This particular urn caught my eye last night, and I believe  is worthy of it’s very own post.  Immediately outside the main entrance to the inn, on the porch before you check-in for your stay, you can be assured time will stand still…..

….this old black urn is full of wire vine, ivies, a prayer plant, a variety of ferns and other beautiful textures. Shari’s ability to put all of this together in such an inspirational and artistic way is absolutely inspirational.  The clock was a treasure Shari looked for everywhere (she knew exactly what it should look like),  finally finding it on eBay this spring.  Though it truly works, the idea of of time and the necessity of paying less attention to the clock on occasion is something Shari wants you to feel as you enter the Rivertown Inn.

Shari is such a valued member of our staff, and like everyone else on our team she works diligently to ensure your stay at the Rivertown Inn is peaceful, relaxing, and beautiful in every way.

When will you take the time?

Details, details, details……book-ends.

Book-ends are about things in pairs…and I do love ‘two’ of things.  I love to find frames that match, or andirons for fireplaces, or two vases to flank a fireplace mantel.  Two-volume sets are wonderful, and there are many at the inn.  Maybe it’s when I’ve found two of something old it’s just that much cooler that both survived time, and both are together.  And so it is with bookends.  They’re gorgeous and so much fun to add to collections of old books.

A bit of book-end background courtesy of Google….

Given the age of these books from the Tennyson Suite, they may have originally been stored horizontally like this….

Bookends have very practical beginnings, and originally kept people from getting hit on the head.  During medieval times, books were really only found in monasteries and a few other scholarly locations, and were often chained in lecterns and read on slanted surfaces – no bookends there.  Around the end of the Renaissance, books began to be readily available to the masses.  Before books became more regular in size, a small pile of books might be stacked flat, or horizontally; but as the quantity of books increased, forming mountains of books didn’t seem to make much sense.  Shelves and book chests came into use; eventually books began to be stored vertically by the end of the 16th century.  As libraries and collectors formed categorical systems for arranging books, and shelves grew taller and more accommodating, bookends became a means for keeping books neatly vertical on an otherwise unfilled shelf.  Bookends of sufficient weight would keep the shelved books safely in place and reduce book avalanches, making vertical book storage and the use of bookends a definite improvement over horizontally stacked book mountains.

Who knew?

I walked through the inn and found these fantastic examples from various bookshelves, mantels and desks:

This bookend above is from the bookshelves in the Browning Suite.  Love this.

This recently acquired pair is Longfellow himself – difficult to see here but his name is engraved at the base.

“My library was dukedom large enough.”  Shakespeare.  Oh my….

And this lovely gem is one of a pair on the mantel in the Jane Austen Suite.  

These are truly beautiful details.  They’re generally found in lot boxes at auctions, or at local antiques shops in Stillwater.  They’re beautiful anywhere: bookshelves, mantels, side tables or desks.  They can hold up  your cookbooks on your counter, or the CD’s in your family room.  We have old book-ends and new ones, very functional basic black ones for the extra-large volumes, and the richly ornate examples you see here.  I hope you’ll notice other beautiful examples of these when you’re perusing the bookshelves, table tops or mantels next time you’re at the Rivertown Inn.  And I’m pretty sure there will be no books falling on your head – we have that covered.  Beautifully.