Snow Fairy House and Land Art

My little girl's snow fairy house

This is Martina’s snow fairy house. She used sheets of ice off the steps, icicles from our roof and bushes, snow and cedar to line the floor. My husband added the giant icicle horn to the roof.

detail of right side of fairy house and icicle bush

My attempt at ‘Land Art.’  Check out the link and his other links on the site. Great stuff there.

working on the snow fairy house

The snow storm we had last weekend was a rare treat for those of us who live where it is rare. We have had a great time sledding, building things, tramping about and throwing snowballs.

 

Punxatawney Phil Sees his Shadow

thanks to yahoo and Reuters for the image

Today is Groundhog Day. It is also Imbolc and Candlemas. Most of our heavily scheduled Tuesday events are cancelled due to horrible road conditions in our generally snow free home town. I see a felted Groundhog in our future.

 

Stove Restaurant, Portsmouth, VA

I always love trying out a new restaurant, particularly when it’s chef/owner is trying to cook using local and ethically farmed ingredients. Kudos to Stove for sourcing their ingredients locally.

My husband and I made reservations for an early supper, showed up on time and were promptly seated. Our waiter, Mike, was wonderful. The perfect balance of attention and peace. We ordered a cheese plate, wine by the glass and main courses. Mark had rock fish, fresh from the Elizabeth River (eek!) and I had pork, raised in Chesapeake. The cheese was good, the camembert was so creamy I might have drunk it; the black pepper cheese was delicious; the cabbage relish tasted like natural gas.

Mark was not fond of the rock fish. I tasted it and found it rather good and he smokes, so can he actually taste at all? Who knows. I had the pork which consisted of restaurant-made ham, smoky, different and good; pork belly, OMG!; tenderloin which was tender, just like you’d expect; and sausage. The sausage was tough and overwhelmingly smoky. The meats were laid over a sauteed veg mix which consisted of turnips, some sort of stringy squash, onion and garlic.  Overall, the meal was adequate, the portions were large and everything was cooked properly. I didn’t much care for the overwhelming use of strongly flavored vegetables like cabbage, turnips and onions all together.

We had dessert at the bar which includes a huge selection of wines. I had a slice of lemon chess pie and Mark a slice of chocolate pie. I really like the lemon pie which was creamy and buttery and not too sweet, often a problem with desserts.

Overall, I found Stove to be horribly overpriced and overrated by The Experts. While the service was impeccable, the food was a weird mix of really good and not good at all. Coming in at ~$200, including wine and dessert, it was far too costly. We may go back for cheese and drinks in the charming bar in an effort to support a local business trying to do a good thing but it’s doubtful that we will have supper there again.

 

Shabby eco-chic with an edge: Miracle Farm Bed and Breakfast, Floyd,

Our stay at Miracle Farm was last minute, impromptu, the result of a wild hair. The real miracle is that they had the very cabin I wanted to stay in available for the night. This is not a busy time of year in the small mountain towns of Virginia but by Sunday morning it was obvious that Miracle Farm had a full house.

living area, taken from the window seat

Miracle Farm advertises themselves as an ‘ecotourism’ must-stay and they are a ‘certified green facility’, though I’m not sure what that means. It is obvious that the owners, Ed and Karen, are trying to do something good at Miracle Farm by  recycling some of the gray water, rescuing domestic animals, offering sanctuary to the local wildlife and composting and recycling. They seem to be willing to put forth the extra effort required to make their farm a little cleaner and a little less of a burden on our planet’s resources.

The bright spots for us were these:

The cabin was clean, not perfect, but clean. The sheets were soft and smelled wonderful and the bed was very comfortably soft. Mark and I like a soft bed. We slept well despite noisy neighbors–raccoons or people, we were too groggy to care.

View from the living area in Creekside Rustic

The view from the living area was soothing and picturesque. There are pillows and a cushion the window seat and it’s a nice spot to simply sit and look. A place to be quiet and feel quiet.

There was a stack of blankets and towels for the dogs. One blanket for each of them, in case they jump on furniture (they don’t) and towels to dry off their muddy little paws after a walk. Miracle Farm does have stringent rules for pet owners but they are not difficult to abide by, are completely reasonable and I believe it is another miracle that they continue to accept pets after years of bad experiences with pet owners. It is obvious that their pet rules have grown organically from their experiences with hosting pets and their owners over the years.

The artwork was nice. The walls are covered with a variety of funky, hand done stuff and many of the windows have hand made paper shades over them. The dishes in the kitchen are Italian ceramic, a personal favorite of mine and they lent an air of luxury to the little plywood shack. The furnishings were eclectic, cute and fit the space.

kitchen at Creekside Rustic

The kitchen is tiny and a study in contrasts. There are horrible cheap shelves and a plastic paper towel holder but the kitchen is well furnished, the Italian ceramic tableware beautiful and the view from the kitchen sink and gas cook stove is magnificent. I was a bit sad, actually, that I didn’t have the opportunity to cook a meal there.

Ed, the only owner we had any face-to-face interaction with, was lovely. He was warm, friendly, helpful and professional. When he came to do our pre-departure inspection to be sure our dogs hadn’t hurt anything he was sweetly awkward about it. We really didn’t mind, though, because we understand that not all dogs are as calm and well-behaved as ours. =P

There are 3 buckets under the kitchen sink: 1 for compost; 1 for sawdust with which to cover the compostables in the bucket; 1 for recycling glass, plastic and aluminum.

Breakfast is delivered between 8:30 and 9:00 am to the cabins. We got up early and were starved by the time Ed knocked and handed me a picnic hamper filled with steaming hot food. There was grape juice, apparently from concentrate; a cake-like breakfast food filled with blueberries, nuts and a layer of cream cheese; fresh fruit; sausage substitute. The food was good but I really would have appreciated a bit more protein and fewer grain-based items. We had to stop in Floyd on our way out for more food. We ate the B&B breakfast but it didn’t fill us up! The delivery and serving style is fantastic, though. The service was timely, nicely cooked and served in glass, reusable containers. Charming!

The down sides:

When I called to make reservations, Karen, who took them had no idea whether they needed an address to bill our credit card or not.

When I went online to read the directions to the farm, I realized we were on one the roads in the directions but because the directions online did not offer cardinal direction, only L or R direction, I called to be sure we needed to drive through Floyd to get there from Ferrum. Karen was most unprofessional and despite my telling her repeatedly that we were on Route 221/Floyd Highway about 5 miles from Floyd and coming from Ferrum, she kept asking if we were on the Blue Ridge Parkway and where 58 was in relation to us. I had no idea and she ended up shrieking at me, while I remained quite calm, “How in the hell am I supposed to tell you how to tell you to get here when you don’t even know where you are?” I repeated that we were on Route 221, between Ferrum and Floyd and were then coming into Floyd. She gave the phone to Ed, I explained yet again and he told us to drive through Floyd. I was a very short way from asking them to refund our payment and just heading home right then. This was a severe broach of professionalism on the part of Karen and for which Ed apologized to both Mark and I. We all have bad days but I have to say, the apology should have come from her.

They are stingy with the sugar. Mark and I like sugar in our coffee and lots of it. There was enough for 1 cup each or about 6 tsp in the container. There is a up side to this one: this was not refined white sugar but cane crystals. Yum.

The trash can is about the size of a 5 gallon bucket. I’m sure this is to discourage visitors from throwing recyclables into the trash but still? If you’re not going to offer to compost paper and cardboard, you must offer a larger trash receptacle.

Shower drain pipe

The gray water recycling is for the shower only. This is a great idea in theory. In practice the pipe dumps out just above the creek, which means that much of what comes out of the shower runs down the steep hillside and into the creek. No matter how earth-friendly the toiletries they offer are, the creek is still being polluted. They do explain in their literature that they offer environmentally friendly toiletries in an effort to keep the creek clean. I think that it’s naive to think that guests are going to use them instead of their own shampoo, shaving cream and soaps.

Inadequate turning space in parking area for a short bed pickup. Especially in the snowy dark. There is a spot where we could turn around but with other cars there, it was still quite difficult.

Tiny shower. I’m 5’9” and 170 lbs and that’s about all it can handle. Anyone much larger would touch the sides or the ceiling.

the lint on the bathroom wall

Lots of dust and lint in the bathroom, on the walls.

In summary:

In all, our stay at Miracle Farm was nice. Ed was quite hospitable and the accommodations were good. The cabins are tiny little shotgun shacks, well outfitted and decorated on the inside…well, on the inside of the one we stayed in anyway. Breakfast is exactly what they advertise and was one of my favorite things about our stay, despite our residual hunger pangs. The land on which Miracle Farm is situated is run through and bordered by mountain streams and the sound of rushing water and the option of just looking at the water flowing over the rocks is one of my favorite things about the mountains, readily available at Miracle Farm.

We appreciate the willingness of the proprietors to put up with the quirks (and hair balls) involved with hosting pets. They do have an old goat pen, fenced off, where we were allowed to turn our dogs loose while we watched. In this way the dogs managed to burn off a few calories and get really wet in the snow. That was nice and it got us outside for a walk in spite of rain.

If you don’t mind rough accommodation with nothing much to do but be still, Miracle Farm may be a good choice for you. If you want posh rooms, lots of space, a pool, something for the kids to do besides get dirty, it’s probably best that you choose other accommodations. Miracle Farm was a good fit for us.

The altercation with Karen could have been handled better–or should not have happened at all–but in spite of that, we really enjoyed our stay and we will probably go back. It is good to know that there are people who are making a living while sharing their green space with the rest of us.

 

GUESS Homeschool Science Fair

he sponsors of our 2009 GUESS Homeschool Science Fair generously provided our young scientists with exciting prizes for the winners. Their donations also allowed us to underwrite the cost of all the kids’ science fair day at the VASC, including an age-appropriate science class, an electricity demo, and an IMAX movie. Part of what we do to thank our sponsors is generating links for them on homeschool blogs and sites, pointing to their web presence from descriptive anchor text, to boost their Google ranking on those search terms. That’s where this post comes in!

We need your help to spread these links across the internet, to say thank you to these businesses for supporting our young homeschooled scientists. If you have a blog, or site, and you can help us, please steal this post! For maximum impact on search engines, it’s very important that the links go along with the post, attached to the appropriate text, so if you need the plain HTML to put into your blog, click here for a .txt file.

So, how can you help the GUESS Homeschool Science Fair?

1. Copy this post, or the .txt file with the HTML.
2. Post it to your blog.
3. Let us know when you’ve done it so we can link back to your blog!

Here’s the part of the post we want you to “steal”:

Thank you to the following homeschool-friendly businesses for supporting the GUESS Homeschool Science Fair and the young scientists of Hampton Roads!

Green Olive Tree is an internet company based in Portsmouth, Virginia and owned and operated by a homeschooling family. They offer a broad range of internet services, from reliable web hosting to corporate infrastructure solutions and server administration.

SKS Science supplies homeschoolers and other educators with all the science supplies you need to turn your dining room table into a proper laboratory. Browse their site for test tubes, bottles, face masks and other lab supplies and books.

Book Exchange is the largest used bookstore in Eastern Virginia. Unlike most musty and confusing used stores, this one is clean, bright, inviting, and has a huge selection of used homeschool books. There’s always an interesting curriculum find on these shelves!

Folkmanis Puppets makes the most delightful animal puppets available outside Santa’s workshop. Meet their most unusual creations like llamas, Chinese dragons, ostriches, flying squirrels. Unusual materials create realistic textures, and they all move in very realistic ways. Irresistible.

The Happy Scientist, Robert Krampf, hosts an online wonderland for budding scientists. With online science lessons, experiments to try at home, a science photo of the day, and new content added all the time, you’ll love setting your kids loose on this site.

Mad Science is Hampton Roads’ premier provider of science enrichment classes for children. Summer classes include “Crazy Chemistry” and a space camp developed with NASA! New homeschool science classes are being offered in Norfolk and VA Beach, with more planned for fall.

Moore Expressions is a homeschool bookstore in Virginia Beach, VA. They sell used and new homeschooling curriculum, host a support group, and publish a newsletter called the Bayith Educator. They are the premier source for homeschooling books in the Hampton Roads area.

Norfolk Karate Academy offers classes in Tang Soo Do (Korean karate) and Gracie Jiu Jitsu (Brazilian grappling and self-defense). With classes for children, teens, and adults, it’s a great way for anyone to get in shape and kick things in a socially acceptable way!

Brooks Systems offers standalone software and web applications that check legal compliance in all municipalities in all fifty states, and create truth-in-lending documents for residential lenders. Using Brooks for your automated mortgage compliance, you can be sure your loans are safe.

Virginia Air and Space Center was host to the homeschool science fair this year, and delivered awesome science classes for homeschoolers from their education department. The VASC is the educator resource center for the NASA Langley Research Center.

 

Newton Piano, Virginia Beach

Update: Today Newton did come to our home and repair the piano. The Mr. Newton who came, Joe, was incredibly personable and professional. He found the problem with the piano, fixed that and we then hired him to tune it. He stayed for several hours and did a damned fine job.

When browsing through the directory for piano movers, there was only one company that dealt exclusively with pianos among the plethora of multi-purpose moving companies. It seemed to be very simple to choose Newton. After all, they appeared to be the professionals.

I called, booked the move tentatively based on having my call returned and pick up confirmed by X, the person who deals with booking moves. I very specifically left instructions that I be contacted at my home telephone number because cell phone service at our rural NC home is undependable. I never received a call at our home but when I left to go out a few days later and got service on my cell, I noticed that I had missed a couple of calls from Newton. I called back and spoke with X who said something about how I need to answer my phone. I then re-explained the situation with cell -vs- home telephones but in the end, X never contacted me at my home number. He was also patronizing and insistent, for a short time, that my piano is not a baby grand but probably a small grand piano which would cost more to move. Not that he had seen the piano.

X told me that he contracts the moves out to another company, which should have sent my alarms to ringing but it didn’t. He told me that the movers generally come and pick up the truck at 8:00 am on Saturdays and they would come to my house immediately after that. I asked if I could then plan on the piano movers arriving between 9:00 and 9:30 am and was told that no, he couldn’t say that. I asked what time I should expect them and X told me that sometime before 10:30 am on Saturday would be reasonable.

On the day of the scheduled move all was quiet. No telephone ringing. No movers arriving. Nothing. Finally, at approximately 11:45 am, I called Newton Piano and was told that the movers would not be in that day. They had made other plans. XX told me, “I should have called.” No kidding. He said they would be at my home the following morning and proceeded to tell me how dependable the men are. I told him that my experience told me different but that I would be there and to please call if they couldn’t be there.

Following morning the movers came. They moved the piano. It now has a dead key and rings (I am not certain of the proper term here) as if one of the pedals were pushed down all of the time. We called and Newton said someone would come out to repair the piano. Nothing so far. The piano has been here for a week. They want us to pay them $85.00 to tune it but we paid them $395.00 to move it and they damaged it during the move and are, as seems to be their wont, neglecting to do their professional duty by staying in touch or showing up to fix the antique baby grand in my living room.

Based on my experience with Newton I cannot recommend them for their quality of service, pricing or customer relations. All-in-all my experience with Newton was a huge disappointment.

 

The Lobscouser, Portsmouth, VA

I wanted to eat there. I really did. The menu looked good. The interior was cozy and little Savannah shabby chick and my Dad loves the place. The waiter and the hostess were both friendly and so we sat down, but the smell… Dear God, the smell.
My husband, daughter and I were seated quickly, brought water and our drinks and when my husband noticed that I had pulled my somewhat low-cut shirt over my nose he figured something must be wrong. I mean, I can be odd but I have decent table manners. Sitting with my nose between my breasts just doesn’t play in under normal circumstance. I tried to last it out figuring I would stop noticing the strong smell of old building must and rot overpowered by the odor of urine so strong that I think someone must routinely use the carpet instead of the bathroom. I couldn’t even choke down my Pinot Noir.
Hubby paid while daughter and I waited outside. She couldn’t take the smell either.
(A small aside: Hubby smokes. He can’t detect many odors but is good for sniffing out bacon and grilling steaks.)

 

'The Shelf', 2000 block of White Marsh Rd, Suffolk, VA

We have never met the owners of The Shelf. We have never seen them. My husband and I assume that these folks grow their food using Sevin Dust and Roundup but we stop off and buy it because it’s local and we feel good about that. We also buy food from The Shelf because it is fresh. There is no way of hiding freshness or it’s lack, when what you have is produce sitting in a basket on a board.

I apologize for not handing out a phone number and the mail box does not have a number on it but I can tell you this: If you’re headed home and 12 plum tomatoes for $1 sounds like it make be a good addition to supper, you’re probably right and you probably need to swing by and pick them up. You may also want to try out the squash or onions.

Please enjoy the following trailer, brought to you by some other people who enjoy fresh food:

 

U.S. Airways: You Have to be Kidding

We fly. We make every effort to avoid using US Air because they leave us in a bind every time we use them. Our experience tells us that their flights are often delayed, their service shoddy, their customer service reps full of bunk. As I type this I am sitting in an airport waiting for a flight that is one hour late. The counter person is unwilling to do anything but fulfill my request to have someone meet us at the gate with a cart to drive us to a shuttle so we can change terminals. Will this happen? We shall see.
Here are the things the agent tried to tell me:
>That 45 minutes is the average amount of time required to change planes in Philly.
>That switching from domestic to international flights does not require much time.
>That finding the Lufthansa counter in Philly will not be a problem. (There is not, so far as what is listed on the airport’s website, any Lufthansa ticket counter in the Philadelphia airport.)
>That there is no way to get us from one terminal to another more quickly than we can do it by walking and riding the shuttle.
>That if I would shut up and listen she could tell me what she would do to help us. It was what I asked for begin with when she told me that she would not be able to help us at all.
We *had* 2.5 hours to change from a domestic to international, from one airline to another. Now we have 1.5 hours to do so. Can we? Will we get to where we’re going? Keep an eye on WhereIGoReviews and I’ll let you know.
Based on years of experience with U.S. Airways I do not recommend using them. Try Southwest instead.

 

The First Annual 'Custies'

I love great customer service. I will drive the extra 50 miles for it, pay the extra cash for it and I will leave a big, huge tip in honor of it. On the other hand, poor customer service is something that will make me boycott a business without fail. In honor of the great customer service I have received in the past year, I offer The Custies. 

Read On:

To Eat in Suffolk, VA:

Sushi aka

To fly in the USA:

Southwest Airlines

For eye glasses or contact lenses in Chesapeake/Norfolk/Portsmouth:

Dr. George Pegram

For family camping in the Blue Ridge:

Montebello Camping Resort

For once-yearly, dependable family fun:

The Gates County Rodeo

For tires in Gates County:

Dixie

A few other favorites include The Vintage Tavern in Suffolk, VA; Lulu’s Hot Dogs in Chesapeake, VA; MacArthur Mall for an overall quality shopping and dining extravaganza ; Kincaids in Mac Arthur Mall, Norfolk, VA; Breckenridge Manor boarding, training and riding lessons in Virginia Beach; and Namir at Luxury Auto in Virginia Beach. And there you have it.

Late Edit:

I forgot to include where to purchase a new Mac!  The Apple Store at MacArthur Mall in Norfolk, VA. Yes, that mall again. I hate shopping and the mall makes it easy, kind of like the Geniuses at the Apple Store.