Inspired to Give!

I’ve been thinking about “adopting” a Charity of the Month for some time. This month I have been inspired to begin. We will be counting our room nights between now, November 22, and December 31, 2009 and we will donate $5 for each room towards purchasing the gift of an animal for Heifer International. We will also send a note to each guest who stays with us during that time, sharing what gift we were able to give. So what will this gift buy?

4 room nights ($20) gives a Flock of Chicks, or a Flock of Ducks and Geese

6 room nights ($30) gives the Gift of Honeybees

12 room nights ($60) gives a Trio of Rabbits

24 room nights ($120) gives the Gift of a Goat, or a Pig or a Sheep

30 room nights ($150) gives the Gift of a Llama

50 room nights ($250) gives the Gift of a Water Buffalo

100 room nights ($500) gives the Gift of a Heifer

So, you may be thinking, what inspired us today to begin this program. Well, we had an inspiring morning filling Operation Christmas Child boxes! As we went from table to table selecting items for the boxes, we watched children inspired to think of items they would love to see themselves in a gift box – a baseball hat, a button-up shirt, a rubik’s cube, a calculator with a case… the boxes were stuffed full. They wrote a personal note, and even attached an EZ Give label so we can track where in the world the boxes are delivered. When we were finished someone turned to me and said “I’m So Excited, and I don’t even know why!”

Well I do! And it got me inspired! How could the Nicolin Mansion participate in sharing and experiencing this joy? Operation Christmas Child collects and begins distributing the shoe boxes of gifts in November, so maybe it’s too late for that this year. But I thought of a conversation with one of my close friends in which we decided we wouldn’t exchange gifts, but rather pool the money we would have used to buy gifts for each other and buy the gift of an animal for Heifer International instead. That was it – how about pooling a donation for each room night we have between now and the end of the year. Now, we are so excited too! The same excitement I witnessed as we filled those shoe boxes.

Introducing New Seasonal Rates

It seems everyone is talking and thinking about the economy these days. The days of spending on a whim and putting off thinking about it until tomorrow are a thing of the past, and probably for the best. Getting back to the basics of what really matters in life has become a priority to many of us.

It is important to Kevin and I too as innkeepers at the Nicolin Mansion. Our guests come here for many reasons – to celebrate, to reconnect, to relax, to… These moments in life are important to us as a couple. We know they are important to our guests as well.

So we wanted to make it just a little easier to continue to celebrate those important moments in your life by offering new lower rates here at the Nicolin Mansion. A little slower pace… a moment to catch your breath… Life in Jordan slows a bit this time of year too. The waterfall takes on a new beauty as the frozen water slowly flows over crystal rocks. A stroll along to the historic district decorated for the holidays, and often decorated by Mother Nature with a quiet snowfall, lets you drift back thinking of what Jordan might have been like when it was a young settlement with residents and entrepreneurs creating their dream. A cup of cocoa or spiced wine by the fire in the parlor or in your room is sure to warm your spirit.

Just take a look…

Vintage Cookie Recipe Of The Week: Cocoanut Oatmeal Cookies

I love reading old cookbooks – the unique names, different spellings, recipes I couldn’t even imagine cooking, interesting directions (or lack there of). For some time now, I’ve been thinking of working my way through some of my vintage cookbooks and baking the cookie recipes for our guest kitchen cookie jar. Seeing “Julie & Julia” a couple weeks ago inspired me to put my plan into action. So here is the first of (hopefully) a weekly series.

Cocoanut Oatmeal Cookies

Cocoanut Oatmeal Cookies

Melt 1 cup butter and 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup white sugar, 3 beaten eggs, 2 cups cocoanut, 3 cups oatmeal, 1 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. soda, 1 tsp. vanilla, about 2 cups flour. Drop from spoon on cookie sheet and bake for 10 to 15 minutes at 375. – Dolores Bormann

From: “Community Cook Book” Wahpeton, North Dakota

 

Innkeeper’s comments: My inspiration to choose this recipe this week comes from having a fresh coconut on hand and I loved the “cocoanut” spelling. I grated the coconut (in the food processor) to get the 2 cups – it took 1/2 of the coconut. After melting the butter, I poured it in a bowl and added each ingredient in order. I used just the 2 cups of flour. I baked them in my electric oven for 12 minutes. It made 5 dozen cookies. I’m not sure the year of this cookbook, it belongs to my Gramma, though the advertising includes three-digit phone numbers, and another cookbook from the area is dated 1953 and has five-digit phone numbers, so best guess 1940’s.

Nicolin Mansion Rating: ******** (8 out of 10 stars)

Recycled Art Contest – 3rd Place!!

The summer has flown by – I’ve been remiss at keeping up with this blog, so I’ll be spending the next few days catching up on some of the summer’s highlights.

Recyled Art - The Panes of Mud

During the Jordan Art Festival, the Recycled Art Contest III was sponsored by 225 Water Street and The Vinery Floral, and I submitted an entry, and won third place! Thursday night is craft night for me and our innsitter – we take turns working on each others project that we have been wanting to finish. One of our latest projects has been transforming old windows from the mansion’s third floor into pieces of art. I have collected Jordan postcards, mostly from eBay, and they were scanned and resized to fit into the various sized window panes. We’ve been working on three windows, and the one entered in the Recycled Art Contest featured Jordan’s mud baths – Mudbaden and Jordan Sulpher Springs. We printed the scanned postcards as reversed images onto clear label paper, and were mounted to the back of the window. The clear paper allows light to shine through from the back giving a great visual effect to the images. Stop by the inn – we have three of these windows hanging in the front entry: “The Panes of Mud” window, a window of Jordan’s historic structures, and a window of Jordan street scenes.

Life Slowly Starts to Choke…

Poet Laureate Billy Collins observed “All babies are born with a knowledge of poetry, because the lub-dub of the mother’s heart is in iambic meter. Then life slowly starts to choke the poetry out of us.”

I just recently learned of the “stunt” performed at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington D.C. on January 12, 2007 by the Washington Post (oh yes, I surely should have known about this before now) . The basic question was “In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?” Would we acknowledge art, beauty, talent where we don’t expect it, when we don’t expect it? Sadly the answer was no. As the world aclaimed violinist Joshua Bell played incognito as a street performer with his violin case open for tips to an unexpecting audience for 45 minutes, playing some of the most aclaimed masterpieces of all time, he attracted the attention of  7 people (for more than one minute) out of the 1,097 people hurrying past, and received tips of $32.17. Busy people completely oblivious to the Avery Fisher award-winning best classical musician in America.

As I’m writing this, I’m listening to the full performance online. I’d like to think that I would have been one of the 7 people to stop. More than one minute. My best friend from high school is a professional violinist, her sisters are – they perform internationally, know Joshua Bell, went to school with him at the Indiana University School of Music. My husband is a musician. Almost every friend I have made since I moved to Jordan is an artist. Every Thursday is “craft night” with my innsitter (more on that in another post). Personally, my only claim to the art world is a passion for photography, and maybe decorating this inn. But knowing many talented artists, I sincerely hope I would be one of those seven!

My mind began racing. As we race through our lives, how much beauty, art, talent do we miss along the way – and isn’t that what makes our lives more meaningful? The beauty captured in a painting or photograph, a piece of music that speaks to us, a book we can’t put down, our garden, or our neighbors garden - even the beauty of relationships, and watching that captured on the faces of those we cherish. This list could be endless. However, the only demographic consistantly drawn to Joshua Bell’s performance were children – and every parent hurried them along as they turned their necks to watch as they were led away.  Do we, do I, choke the poetry/art out of our younger generation? Has it been choked out of us?

What do WE miss as we hurry through our day off to our obligations? I have always taken the “scenic route to work” – now along the Minnesota River, in California along PCH then through the canyons, but maybe that doesn’t count as I’ve always hated freeway driving so the beautiful route is my excuse. But maybe not? How much beauty/art is missed as we commute? It makes me wonder how many people even notice the historic building towering over them (let alone the historic district they drive through) as they race to work down the highway past our inn. And does my appreciation wane as I live in this historic mansion daily? It reminds me of stopping to smell those proverbial roses.

This performance was January 2007 – before the upheavel to so many of our lives in this recession. So many of us have given ourselves back to the basics in life. Would the attention given to Joshua Bell’s performance be any different today? I’d like to think so. I just might ask the Washington Post what they think now.

Think What You Say…

A poem submitted from one of the many young talents at the inn. What do you think?

I will do what I must

I will do what I say

to think that I will not have to pay

but if I have to pay I will say -

the land of the life

I will say to and from

I shall not perish a thumb

from the money that I shall not pay

God put us here from far away

he put us here not to pollute or fight

so listen up from this day

think what you say

because this might be your day.

Crystals Restored to Art Festival Arbor

The crystals have been returned to the Arbor we purchased at the 2007 Jordan Art Festival!

Crystals Hanging from Arbor

Greeting you as you enter the courtyard garden, the crystals send rainbow lights dancing through the gardens. When we first brought the arbor into the courtyard, we didn’t have it anchored down. Strong wind blowing through the courtyard would knock down the arbor and crystals would be lost in the plants. I recovered as many as I could, they were said to come from an antique chandelier from New York, but I’ve had to add several new crystals found on eBay. It’s so beautiful having it restored to it’s former grandeur.

And speaking of the Art Festival – the 6th Annual Jordan Art Festival is coming up this weekend, June 20 & 21. Both Saturday and Sunday there will be Artist Demonstrations in oil painting, watercolor, wheel-thrown pottery and more. The Ambrose Freedman Log Cabin will be open for tours by Myrna Pekarna, and then stop over at Pekarna’s Meat Market next door for some of the best ribs, sausages, and blue cheese you’ll ever find! Across the street Maureen Carlson, our Jordan resident polymer clay artist, will be presenting her Storyclay (TM) Telling at 1:00 each day.  And don’t miss the Recycled Art Contest III entries and winners on display in the courtyard at 225 Water Street. Past contest entries have been extremely creative, so be sure to check it out!

The Jordan Art Festival is just one part of the 2009 Jordan Summer Celebration. In Lagoon Park check out “Pork In The Park” sponsored by the Jordan Jaycees. There will be food vendors – featuring pork sandwiches – plus craft vendors and performers in the bandshell.  And on Saturday morning, the 6th Annual Jordan Valley Bike Tour featuring 12, 20, 35 and 60 mile rides leaves from the Mini Met Stadium.

And if you need a place to stay, we still have some rooms available at our Bed & Breakfast for each night of the Art Festival. You’ll be just a few shorts steps away from all of the festivities!

Our House Finch Babies

Last year a Robin built a nest in the rafters of our Kitchen porch. We never did get any pictures – I had grand visions of setting up a wireless webcam to watch them, but never did. We left the nest untouched through the winter in hopes there would be new occupants this spring. And we were blessed with a new family of House Finches.

We have seen the mama House Finch come to feed the babies, and start allowing us watch from the sidelines without flying away. Tonight we got out the camera and were able to capture some images of the babies! I’m not sure if there are 2 or 3 babies – most of the pictures show 2, but at one point one flew off, so maybe there are 3.

Lavender & Lime Tea Recipe

We are often asked for our recipes, and for those dishes that actually have one, we are very willing to share. One of our favorites is Lavender & Lime Tea, a very unexpected yet refreshing summer ice tea. I’ve prepared this tea for years before my B&B days - for showers, teas with friends, and as a family favorite. Creating this tea is an artistic event in itself, as mixing the deep purple lavender tea with the green limeade creates a swirl of beautiful pink tea. Dried lavender flowers can be found at local health and natural food stores, such as Valley Natural Foods in Burnsville where I buy mine. Here’s the recipe – enjoy:

 

               1 tablespoon dried lavender flowers

               1 cup boiling water

               1 6-ounce can frozen limeade concentrate

               Place lavender flowers in a small teapot or bowl.

               Pour the boiling water over the flowers.

               Steep, covered, for at least 10 minutes.

               Prepare the limeade concentrate according to the package directions.

               Stir and strain lavender tea into the limeade. Chill.

               Makes 5 servings

Jordan Girl’s Night Out – the birth of the clock…

OK, time for my first blog. I’ll be doing some catching up for a while, and likely a bit long winded, since this is just the beginning. So many good intentions. My hope is to bring some of the musings, the inspiration, from the innkeeper’s mind. Maybe artistic, maybe historic, maybe philosophical if my husband gets his hands on this. Let’s start with artistic inspiration…

The Historic Jordan Water Street Merchant’s through ExploreJordan.org presented a Girl’s Night Out on May 15th. With help from Sarah Hansen (Tilly Evan Jones’ daughter, our local Palm Reader), we presented our Tea & Tile events. Though it rained, and we moved the event from the courtyard garden indoors, we had a great turnout. We served Lavender & Lime Tea and pastries in the formal dining room, and had tiling in the kitchen.

Those who hang around Jordan for any time are sure to be inspired to glue shiny objects to other things by Jordan’s resident mosaic tile artist, Mara Wallach. Before I even knew what I was doing, I decided to tile the face of our antique fireplace mantle with VanGogh glass tiles.

Front Parlor Fireplace - First VanGogh Tiling Project

I have said many times over the years of renovating this building, it’s better that I don’t know what I’m doing before I take on a project, otherwise I may never have done it. Well, that fireplace was one of those! Mara came to my rescue during that project, and gave me, and our innsitter Cindy, a quick lesson in mosaic tiling, pointing out this was not the beginner’s project – but graciously rescued me with instructions the eve of Christmas Eve!

After that I of course took her class, and created the welcome frame for our Guest Kitchen – a bit of a backwards introduction.

Guest Kitchen Welcome - first actual tiling class

Now I’m hooked. I next tiled the buffet table for our front porch, with Fleur-de-Lis pattern and red glass tiles. I’ve was inspired for this is the focal point of scones, cinnamon rolls and coffee during the Jordan parades marching in front of our porch on Memorial Day and Heimatfest – and so it has served.

Front Porch Buffet Table - home to Jordan parade sweet treats

I’ve come to realize my engineering background keeps me more formal than abstract in my designs, but in the art world there is room for it all.

So on to the project for Girl’s Night Out. In my past life in California, I painted porcelain pieces. I had an Ivy and Cherub theme going (not breaking from my formal “must-have-a-theme” mentality), and painted a clock and a vase – both of which had been broken by my cats from my past life in Prior Lake. So, I’ve moved on from the ivy theme – loved the pieces – but were  repaired yet broken beyond display. The perfect mosaic tile medium. So during a very rainy garage sale day, I proceeded to break the clock, the vase, and several complimentary vases and plates. Ready for a new piece!

Sacrificing the wood destined for a tabletop of shells and sand collected from our spring break trips down south, I glued the foundation pieces of the California clocks and vases and let the girls have at it! It was great fun. Some were enthusiastic and were gluing naturals, others a bit intimidated but I think were set free with the gluing process. It’s addicting! It all wasn’t finished that night, but over the next couple of days I glued in a frenzy as I’ve never done on a project – it was complete within a week! All that is left is finding clock hands big enough to do the 2-foot clock justice (eBay here I come). The clock is already hanging on the back porch in the courtyard, patiently awaiting her tell-time handles. What do you think???

 

 

Cherub & Ivy Clock - awaiting clock handles

I wish I photographed the separate pieces before the clock project. But for my next project – my long awaited reclamation of the bird bath – I did capture where I started. It’s the project of the month now!

Bird Bath – Before

Watch for updates, and the history behind the pieces getting glued. For me, I guess, it just all has to have some meaning, and these pieces have some for me.

Till next time… your innkeeper, Terri