blog @ stone lion cape cod » nature

Notes on a Quiet Winter Weekend

Janet Loewenstein — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:33:37 +0000

This has been a quiet month, even by winter standards. There have even been some completely empty weekends including like this one. There is, of course, still work to do, but the pace is very different. I also get to work more on my body’s natural schedule, which notably does not include getting up before sunrise.

Last night I attended a surprise birthday party for a friend. My contribution to the dessert table was lemon bars, a recipe I hadn’t made in about ten years. I’d forgotten how good they are, and how easy. They were a hit with the guests, too. I’ll post the recipe below. It was nice to go out for the evening and not have to worry about late check-ins or prepping for the next morning’s breakfast.

Late this afternoon I was taking a bag of trash out – possibly the most mundane chore ever – when a full-grown red hawk came out of nowhere, swooped low over my back yard and perched in my neighbor’s tree. Made my day.

LEMON BARS

Shortbread Base

1 ½ sticks (3/4 cup) cold, unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 cups all purpose flour
½ cup packed light brown sugar
½ teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350°F

Process all ingredients in a food processor until mixture begins to form small lumps. Sprinkle mixture into a 9 x 13 x 2 inch baking pan and with a metal spatula, press evenly onto bottom. Bake in the middle of the oven until golden, about 20 minutes.

While the shortbread is baking, prepare topping.

Lemon Topping

4 eggs
1 ½ cups sugar
Pinch of salt
1 Tablespoon + 1 teaspoon a.p. flour
1 Tablespoon grated lemon peel
½ cup fresh lemon juice

In a medium bowl, beat eggs then add remaining ingredients and blend. Pour over crust and bake until mixture is set, about 20 minutes. Cool completely before cutting.

Dust lemon squares with powdered sugar before serving.

More Musings

Janet Loewenstein — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 04:48:09 +0000

A week before Christmas we had a highly unusual snowfall, almost 2′. To get that amount all at once is fairly rare out here; to get it before Christmas is almost unheard of. Not that it wasn’t pretty, it’s just not that much fun to deal with.

Wellfleet's December blizzard

Ok, that doesn’t look so bad does it? Nah. But you can’t really tell from the photo just how much of the white stuff is on the ground.

This might give you a better idea:

The courtyard behind the house after the blizzard

Are ya gettin’ the idea? The cold weather stuck around for almost a week, and so did the snow. Temperatures did finally start to creep back up above freezing on Thursday and we had highs in the low 40’s & 50’s for three days, so it’s pretty much gone now. It did make for a white Christmas, the first one in the ten years I’ve lived here, so that’s good.

Speaking of Christmas, I hope everyone had a good one. A good friend invited me over to her house for Christmas dinner with family & friends, which was lovely. I made a chocolate-orange poundcake to bring, a recipe that could use a little more tweaking but was still pretty darned good. I also made sparkling cranberries. Those were just on a whim, a friend had sent a link to the recipe, they looked gorgeous & easy plus I had fresh cranberries in my refrigerator. I’ve gotta tell you, they were really good. Here’s a picture:

Sparkling Cranberries

Can you imagine a more perfect addition to a holiday table? The best part is they can accompany food or just be eaten as a snack. They are kind of addictive, though, so watch out!

Guest-wise, things have been fairly quiet around here. Thanksgiving was busy followed by a totally dead weekend, then I had a stretch of about 8 days where there were guests every night and then nothing the following weekend. That’s not so unusual, though. The period between the holidays is often one of the slowest of the year and I’m fine with that. I have a few guests this week and then we’ll see what the final holiday weekend of the year brings.

Here’s wishing everyone a happy, healthy and safe New Year. See you in 2010!

Slice of PAII

Janet Loewenstein — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 00:27:00 +0000

I’m off this week to the PAII* conference in Atlanta. It promises to be three days of information-packed sessions, a busy trade show and (I hope) some time spent with innkeeper friends from other parts of the country.

In other news, my occupancy for the first quarter of this year is up slightly from last year, economy not withstanding. Reservations for the summer are coming in steadily as well. Signs of spring are everywhere, even though the weather has remained chilly. When I get back it will be time to start thinking about yard cleanup and spring projects.

A guest snapped this nifty photo of a hawk at the Wellfleet Bay Wildlife Sanctuary a couple of weeks ago and sent it, along with permission to use it here:

Thanks, Mia!

If I learn anything worth reporting at the conference I’ll post about it when I return. Y’all have a great week.

*PAII is the acronym for the Professional Association of Innkeepers International, the trade association for B&B owners and Innkeepers. It’s pronounced “pie”.

Solstice

Janet Loewenstein — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:29:00 +0000

I want to wish all my readers (both of them) a happy, healthy, safe Winter Solstice and whatever other holiday you may celebrate this week. May you be warm & dry and surrounded by those you love.

Provincetown’s “famous” lobster trap Christmas Tree

Winter Light

Janet Loewenstein — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 02:04:00 +0000

The light here is different from anywhere else I’ve lived. It’s most noticable in the winter, when the angle of the sun is so much lower, and particularly near sunset. It can make for some very dramatic scenes.

Here are two photos* that illustrate that beautifully, taken by my friend and sometime-guest, Tom Baratz.

This is Mayo Beach, on the harbor, at sunset:

And this is one of our ocean-side beaches, Newcomb Hollow, also near sunset:

*THESE PHOTOS ARE NOT TO BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT PERMISSION

Want to see it for yourself? We’re open through the winter, come on down!

Wildlife

Janet Loewenstein — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:49:00 +0000

I thought I’d share two marvelous photos taken earlier this month. The first was taken at the Wellfleet Bay Audubon Sanctuary by a guest staying with us.

Isn’t he pretty? The guest, who is from the UK where white tail deer are not found, was thrilled to have seen him and to have gotten this photo.

The next photo was taken by a guest who stays with us on a somewhat regular basis. Thank you, Tom*, for sharing this photo of river otters at Gull Pond.

*This photo is by Tom Baratz. Please do not use it without permission.

Surprises

Janet Loewenstein — Sat, 05 May 2007 19:39:00 +0000

The first surprise came yesterday. The high school gal who cleans for me was helping me in the garden. We were cleaning the skeletonized remains of last year’s petunias out of a raised planter bed when she said “Hey, there’s some sort of animal nest over here!” I looked and there was indeed a tangle of dry stems and sticks. Thinking it was a bird’s nest that had blown out of a tree, I picked it up. It was much looser than a bird nest and I noticed it had a lot of grey fuzz woven into the structure. I poked around some more and found a hole and as I peered into it a little brown bunny head popped out of it! It popped back down and I saw more little brown bodies in there. I called my helper over and she fearlessly reached in and grabbed one – it was about the size of my fist. Another made a break for it and then I grabbed one. She grabbed two more and the last one also got away from us.

Rabbits are really not my favorite animals. They do tremendous damage to my garden every year and I can’t seem to get rid of them. Left to me, the fate of these six little bunnies would have been… um… bleak? Lucky for them, my young employee offered to take them home. We found a 5 gallon bucket, easily caught the remaining two they are now bunking with her gunnea pig. I’ll try to get a picture later in the week.

Surprise number two came this afternoon. I had come inside to change the laundry and the doorbell rang. I was expecting one couple to check in so I grabbed the clipboard with their information and headed for the door. There stood the man I worked for the last 4.5 years I lived in New York and his new fiancee. Honestly, I never really expected to see him again. Not that we didn’t part on good terms, but I just never thought he’d make the drive this far out onto the Cape. Turns out his fiancee has some ties to Wellfleet so I may well see him again, but this kinda threw me.

Lucky for me I have had seven years of dealing with all sorts of people at my door. I just put on my best Innkeeper smile and recovered my composure pretty well. We had a nice visit, then they left to get some lunch and head into P-town. They did not ask for a room.

Doves

Janet Loewenstein — Thu, 19 Apr 2007 23:16:00 +0000

Each spring we, like many people, enjoy the return of many bird species to our little town. One of my favorites is the mourning doves. These plump little birds have a sizeable population here but I never get tired of their soft call or the unique sound they make as they take off.

My husband is not quite as much of a bird lover as I am. He calls the doves “fancy pigeons” and would prefer if they didn’t nest on our property. Inevitably, though, one pair will take a liking to one of our structures. Many years it is the gazebo, which offers good cover for the birds as they nest and fledge their young. This year, about two weeks ago, we noticed a pair of birds building a nest in a gutter, right over the downspout. Even I agreed this was not a good thing, but when my husband went up on a ladder to remove the nest he noticed an egg in it. Now he may not be a fan of the birds, but he is soft-hearted and he couldn’t bring himself to take the nest down with the egg. There was a fairly large rainstorm in the forcast and he assumed that the nest would get flooded and the birds would abandon it then.

Brave momma bird sat on that nest all through that storm, breast deep in water. She sat through the nor’easter this past weekend and the subsequent days of cold rain. She’s still there today. I have no idea if that egg is still viable, but if it doesn’t hatch it won’t be for lack of maternal attention.

I’ll let you know what happens.