The “Engagement Season” is upon us!  Christmas and Valentine’s Day are the two busiest days for jewelers as far as engagement ring purchases.  80% of engagement rings are purchased for Christmas or Valentines Day gifts.  What better time to celebrate love than the holidays? Everyone is so excited to see the beautiful ring.  Family is visiting and able to help with planning dates, venues, ideas, the recounting of historical stories of parents or grandparents or aunts and uncles engagements and weddings.  Oh, the fun stories that are shared about family engagements as soon as a couple becomes engaged. It’s amazing how left-handed a girl becomes as soon as that “rock” goes on her finger.  From personal experience, my daughter reaches for everything with her left hand, flags cabs with her left hand, hands anything to anyone with her left hand. Most wedding shows are usually in the first three months of the year for the very reason of all the holiday engagements.

Every bride is excited and anxious to start planning  for her special day. Here are a few tips for you about information you should have before calling to talk to a venue about your wedding:

• Date or approximate date  (Reception halls or hotels usually have high demand or busy seasons that have higher rates so it’s hard to quote if you don’t have a date in mind)
• Number of guests you would like to plan for wedding ceremony, dinner, reception
• Do you want an indoor or outdoor venue
• Will you need hotel rooms in close proximity to the venue
• Have you discussed budget with parents or each other
• Somewhat of a vision as to casual, formal, traditional or contempory wedding ceremony and reception
• Do you want a DJ or a band for dancing at the reception?
• Would you like any activities planned for your immediate family or wedding party (i.e. spa appointments for the girls, golf/zip lining/paint balling for the guys)

Just remember, the more business you do with a venue, the better your pricing will be. Enjoy this happy, wonderful time and happy planning.

A Heated Birdbath

At times, finding water can become more critical than finding food during the winter season. Provide a heated water source.

A heated birdbath that mounts to deck railing
http://www.gardenersedge.com/ez‐tilt‐to‐clean‐deck‐mount‐heated‐bird‐bath/p/14HBB/

A heater to place in a birdbath
http://www.birdbaths.com/bird‐bath‐accessories/bird‐bath‐heaters/159+162+4294965384.cfm

Provide Shelter

Dense thickets of briars, brambles, and grape vines provide refuge for many birds. Evergreen plants and other tightly branched specimens will allow protection for birds as well. If you put up a live Christmas tree, don’t discard it after taking the décor off, place it outside for the birds to use/enjoy.

Bird Treats

Seed Cones

You will need:

•Pine cones

•Peanut butter

•Birdseed

Pour birdseed into a large paper plate. Spread peanut butter all over the pine cones, and then roll them in the birdseed. Tie a piece of string to the top of each cone and hang them outside on tree branches. You can reuse the pine cones, once the birds have picked them clean.

Festive Popcorn Strings

You will need:

•Popcorn

•Dried cranberries

Pop your popcorn and let it cool. Thread a long piece of string on a large needle. Alternate a piece of popcorn with cranberries. Once you have several strings, take them outside and hang them around trees in the backyard. For added variety, roll the popcorn in oil and then in sesame seed, bread crumbs, or birdseed.

Bird Treat Ornaments

http://www.ehow.com/how_4510634_make‐edible‐outdoor‐christmas‐decorations.html

Orange slices are an appreciated treat as well. Different species appreciate different food types. Study the species you’re trying to attract, or offer a variety of food types to meet different needs. Below is a recipe for Bluebird treats.

Bluebird Winter Treat

•4 cups cornmeal, yellow preferred

•1 cup unbleached flour

•1 cup peanut butter (without sodium and sugar added)

Mix well. Add:

•1 cup sunflower chips

•1 cup ground peanuts (unsalted, of course)

•1/2 to 1 cup currants or stewed and chopped raisins

Mix well again. Then, add:

•1 cup melted lard (preferred), or suet. Mix again.

The mixture should be somewhat crumbly and not too moist. Store it in plastic bags or containers in the refrigerator, or in the freezer for longer term.

This is a very nutritious treat which many songbirds love, especially bluebirds.

New Year’s Eve
Monte Carlo Night
at The Inn at Honey Run
Join us on December 31, 2011
8pm – Midnight

Ticket includes:

Casino admittance and chip allotment
Hors d’oeuvres and dessert buffet
Discounted drink prices
Champagne toast at midnight
Chance to win great prizes

Grand Prize
Two night stay at The Inn at Honey Run
Executive Chef Fetty’s services for dinner up to 8 people in your home
(excludes the cost of food)

$75/person
Reserve with Guest Services today! Limited admittance.
1-800-468-6639

Packages including lodging are also available! Please contact Guest Services for more details.

I must admit I have a love‐hate relationship with Old Man Winter. As much as I love giving my back a break and taking in the beauty of white, glistening snow covering the landscape, toward the end of February I become an impatient, sometimes irritable individual awaiting bright sunshine and t‐shirt temperatures.

 That “snow” word has entered our local forecast, and soon the rush of the holidays will busy many with indoor décor and shopping. Yet, amidst all the indoor hustle and bustle, there are still ways to enliven and enjoy our gardens throughout the winter season, even if we’re doing so in the comfort of a recliner with a hot beverage and seed catalogs/gardening books!

 Below are tips/ideas/projects to keep your garden spirits lifted throughout the chilly season!

Create Winter Containers

You don’t have to leave planter boxes and containers sit empty during the wintery season. Add color, creativity, and interest.

Add Plants with Winter Interest

From dried flowers/seed pods, to colorful fruit, or exfoliating bark, the following list of plants adds excitement to the winter landscape. Take time this winter to plan your new plant additions for the coming year. Then relax and enjoy the added beauty in your winter landscape next winter season.

• Paperbark Maple‐ Acer griseum
• Winter Attribute: Peeling, cinnamon to reddish brown bark

• Harry Lauder’s walking stick‐ Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’
• Winter Attribute: Twisted and spiraling branches. Great for use in winter containers

• Winterberry holly‐ Ilex verticillata
• Winter Attribute: Bright red berries. A great treat for birds

• Witchhazel Hybrids ‐Hamamelis x intermedia
• Winter Attribute: Very showy flowers. Early flowering, late January to March. Available in different colors (dependent upon cultivar)

•  Ornamental Grasses
• Winter Attribute: Color, movement, and sound

• False indigo‐ Baptisia australis
• Winter Attribute: Charcoal colored seed pods that rattle in the wind

• Evergreens
• Winter Attribute: Persistent color, great to use for cuttings in winter containers. Offer unique textures, shapes, and structures. Great bird havens.

Try Hypertufa Troughs

Create your own cement planters in any size or shape. Texture them and proudly display throughout your gardens. A fun winter project!

http://www.finegardening.com/how‐to/articles/make‐hypertufa‐trough.aspx

Plan, Plan, Plan

Hibernate indoors with stacks of garden magazines, books, and catalogs. Plan for upcoming container plantings, vegetable plantings, new plant additions, etc. Now is the time to catch up on lists, classes, and ideas before the busy spring season arrives!

- Receive a $100 gift from The Inn at Honey Run -

The holidays are fast approaching. As everyone prepares for the gift giving season, we wanted to give a gift to our guests, too. This year we decided on assisting our guests with their gift certificate purchases as a “Black Friday” deal, and as a way to extend our ”thank you” during the holiday buying season.

For each gift certificate purchased between

Monday, 11/14/11 at 8:00am and Tuesday, 11/15/11 at 8:00pm

for $250.00 or more,

we will give you a free $100.00 gift certificate*

You can use this for your next visit or stay, and it can be used towards dining, lodging or gift shop purchases.

Please see below for all applicable restrictions.

No crowded shopping malls are needed!

Simply call Guest Services at

1-800-468-6639

*Special Restrictions for $100 Gift: Gift certificate must be purchased during the sale dates and times. Gift certificate is good for one year. It is not valid with any other offer or discounts. No cash refunds are issued on any gift certificate purchase.

Even though it was cool and raining, the Tree Top Pavilion was a great venue for a small wedding of approximately 50 people. The bride was beautiful and the personal vows that the bride and groom wrote for the ceremony caused many tears in the audience. The cool temperatures and rain couldn’t dampen the joy and spirit of the occasion. Truthfully, the Tree Top Pavilion is more romantic to me when it is raining. It is like being in a tree house at the top of the rain forest. Lush trees, green and full, with raindrops falling softly with their quiet, rhythmic sound makes for a wonderful and peaceful backdrop for a wedding.

Probably one of the nicest features of hosting your wedding at The Inn at Honey Run is we can customize and personalize almost any event to make it your special day! It is the goal of our staff to make the event exactly as you always dreamed it would be. If you can dream it, we can make it happen. We always try to be creative and think out of the box. Therefore when a bride asked for a labyrinth instead of the traditional center aisle for her ceremony, we found a local floral company who designed and built a beautiful maze of boxwood and white flowers for the bride and groom to walk through to meet in the middle with the Rabbi.

 Our staff truly enjoys unique and creative events. It makes the weddings so much more personal. By the time the bride and groom and family leave, we feel we have bonded with families and guests. So many couples book their 1st anniversary celebration before leaving the property. As many weddings as has been hosted at the Inn, every wedding is so personalized that no two ever look the same. Every wedding feels like the best we’ve ever done because every bride and groom, family, guests and decorations are so different.

Why not look at our pictures and consider how your dream day could happen at The Inn at Honey Run? We would love to get to know you and your dreams…

I love bacon.  I know of no other smell in the morning, except very strong coffee or Mattie’s coffee cake, which motivates me to get going and embrace the day. The smell of smoky sweet porky goodness lingers through breakfast into lunch in my kitchen.  It’s a very powerful stimulus that hints of good things to come.  As I said, I love bacon.  And now, I’m going to make it for our guests. Not prepare, mind you, MAKE it.  Honey Run cuisine is all about scratch cooking.  We make things, not buy things.  Our staff even built the smoke house!

I practice the art and craft of curing and smoking food.  It is one of the first cooking techniques invented by humans to flavor and preserve food. When I was an instructor at Le Cordon Bleu, I taught the craft of charcuterie.  Charcuterie is basically culinary magic.  It is alchemy.  We take a basic meat, usually a cheap cut, and transform and elevate it.   Tough cuts of meat become delicate sausages, terrines and pates.  Fish are given a smoky savoriness and are changed texturally. 

Amish country has a long history of smoking and preserving food.  At Honey Run and at Tarragon, we are trying to bring some of this to our dining guests.  When you visit us at Honey Run, look for our smoked items on the menu.  Feel free to inquire if we are smoking that day, and if so, I would be happy to show you the smoke house and the bounty within.

Happy Eating,

Chef Fetty

Throughout summer, the gardens at the Inn have welcomed new additions, both plants and sculpture! If you’re visiting us in the future, be sure to take a stroll around the property and enjoy them for yourselves! Here’s a glimpse of the additions; plants that I’m excited about adding and sculpture that really adds that extra impression to our garden spaces.

I’ve been looking all summer for this prize plant and I’ve finally found one!

Hakonechloa macra ‘Aureola’ commonly referred to as Japanese Forest Grass. One of my favorite perennials because of its spilling growth habit and bright gold leaves with a hint of green. Here at the inn, its incredible the way it brightens our woodland gardens. I can’t wait to watch it next spring as leaves emerge with hints of pink before maturing to the golden/green. Its texture makes it fun to pair with bold hostas and its ever‐spreading growth habit offers an un‐common groundcover alternative.

Alchemilla mollis, commonly called Lady’s mantle, has taken residence next to our water feature near the main lodge. A great perennial to be planted next to a walkway or in a patio container so an up‐close view of the way water droplets bead on the leaves can be noticed. The rich blue green leaves look great all year, provided the plant stays moist, and in late spring a cheery display of chartreuse flowers rise above the foliage.

Chelone lyonii

A great perennial for extending bloom season in a garden. Shellflower is just now beginning to flower, this particular cultivar ‘Hot Lips’ showing its clear, pink flowers to the sun in August! In addition to its late bloom time, its also deer resistant and performs well in wet soil conditions and part shade.

There’s a lot of open space in many of the beds, so I’ve put much of my focus on adding groundcovers.

Polygonatum odoratum var. ‘Variegatum’‐ Solomon’s seal is an alternative to common groundcovers not only because of its leaf variegation, but also its height. The two to three foot tall, rhizomatous groundcover will continuously spread to form thick colonies in part‐shade and once established, should uphold in the dry shade conditions many of our mature trees create. Time will tell! In addition to its lovely leaf variegation throughout the growing season, this perennial turns an attractive yellow color in autumn adding extra seasonal interest!

Tis the season for autumn fern! Fall is slowly creeping in, a time when this particular fern,

Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’ deserves a closer look. Fronds develop a nice display of russet‐orange, the beginning stages of this seen in the picture above. In spring, fronds excite once more by opening with a coppery‐pink color before fading to a rich green.

Aside from plants, an exciting and unique stone sculpture has been added to our gardens as well! Thanks to the skillfully artistic work of Will Kallberg, this splendid piece was placed along a pathway in front of the main lodge. You can view more of Will’s work by visiting

http://www.eaglesongstudio.com/home.html. Here are other pieces at the Inn available for purchase.

Lastly,

How could one not notice the brilliant fruit display of Jack

‐In the Pulpits (Arisaema triphyllum ) in our gardens right now?!

A lovely native woodland wildflower at its best in our gardens!

Happy Gardening!

Their webs are unsightly, but because significant damage is usually rare, controlling them is typically unnecessary. They can be removed mechanically by pruning small to medium sized nests out of trees. Burning or torching nests is not recommended as this can cause further damage.

Happy Gardening,

Ashley

The naming process was done over many months, with many revisions, discussions and a couple arguments (good natured of course).  In the end, a name came together that is nature-oriented, ties into colors that are found here and is food-related as well.  We will be revealing it in our next newsletter, but I am going to offer a few clues.  The name is embedded in one of my previous blog posts.  It is food related, a color and found in nature.  If you know the name, please leave a comment.  The first to post a comment or guess will receive a complimentary 4 course dinner (excluding alcohol)on Monday September 19^th, the opening night of our “new” restaurant………………

Happy eating,

Chef Fetty