A Sea of Trees and Glass

Welcome to the new blog.

Some of you will have migrated from www.sailblogs.com/member/mandy where you followed our two and a half year voyage from San Diego, CA through the Panama Canal and up to the East Coast USA where we have left our boat s/v Mandy on the hard in the Chesapeake, and some of you will have discovered this blog through other means.

We began this new venture on January 7th 2011 and we have been working very hard through a long snowy winter to learn all about our Inn and how to run it well. Whereas we had grown accustomed to living on the ocean, now we live in a sea of trees near some of Maryland's most loved state parks. Outside our Innkeepers apartment roam deer and black bear. Chipmunks, squirrels, wild turkey and grouse are also frequent visitors and we have a growing list of birds sighted here. Richard my husband and inn-keeping partner built a bear proof bird feeder outside the inn's kitchen window and it has been attracting chickadees, junco's, tufted titmice, woodpeckers, cardinals and wrens.

Two days ago I was in the kitchen preparing hors d'oeuvres, and I heard a tremendous crash like some one had dropped a huge tray of glasses, then a shrill cry from one of our guests made me run out to investigate. It turned out that a Ruffled Grouse had flown straight through the window near the breakfast room. One man had been busy microwaving a cookie near the window when the incident happened. He stood in his stocking feet with shattered glass over the entire floor, counter top and even on the plate he was holding. I told him not to move as he would get glass in his feet, until I had a chance to go and get him some shoes. The poor grouse was flapping around on top of the neatly laid breakfast tables, trying to work out where it was and how to get back outside. It was stunned from its impact with the glass window pane and along with the glass there were grouse feathers everywhere. What a mess! It was Friday night, right in the middle of the time for new guests checking in for the weekend.

Eventually we caught the poor bird and put her/him outside in the barn with the door ajar so that it could recover its senses under cover. I am still finding feathers and glass in various nooks and crannies. The guest also recovered his senses after a warm cookie and all concerned were none the worse. He took a photo of the bird in Richard's hands before we released it which we hope he will E-mail to us for you to see.What remains to be done is to get the window back from the repair shop and that will happen in due course.

Its going to be a whole new trip, so come along and enjoy the ride with us.