Posted by Joanne Sardini on Sun, May 23, 2010
So here it comes again - the official kick off for the summer on Martha's Vineyard - Memorial Day weekend. If you believe what "they" say, we can now wear our white clothes and sandals with pride as we enter what promises to be another fun filled summer season.
It is already shaping up to be a busy weekend with lots of great events going on. If you enjoy browsing the many wonderful galleries the Island has to offer, then you are in luck - a number of galleries are having shows to kick off the season. The Eisenhauer Gallery here at the Colonial Inn will be featuring some new artists at their show on Saturday evening. As an extra treat favorite Island band, Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish will be playing at the show, so stop by, say hi and get your groove on!
Up-Island, both the Grange Hall and the New Ag Hall are hosts to much anticipated annual shows. The Grange Hall plays host the 12th Annual Vineyard Artisans Memorial Day Show on Saturday and Sunday. This is the kick off to the Vineyard Artisans summer season which sees them at the same location every Sunday in June and Thursdays and Sundays in July and August. This show features arts, crafts and jewelry from many renowned local artists.
The New Ag Hall is hosting the Friends of Family Planning's annual art show. If you are in town early and would like to support this cause, their Gala Preview Party is on Thursday evening. The show itself runs Friday to Sunday from 10-6.
If you get to Martha's Vineyard early enough on Friday you can see a touching tribute to the holiday and a great reminder as to why many of you have the day off work on Monday. The March to the Sea by the children of Tisbury school is a lovely tribute to the memory of all of those we have lost. See the kids, waving their flags as they march from Tisbury School to Owen Park starting at noon.
This is just a sampling of the many fun and interesting events that are going on, not to mention all the new stores opening, old stores re-opening, restaurants old and new and much more besides.
How will you be spending your holiday weekend?
Photo Credit; US Army
Posted by Michael Wilson on Sun, Mar 28, 2010
Let's continue the story of Greening the Colonial Inn. If you missed Part One it's over here. Go ahead, I'll wait while you catch up...
My brain hurts just compiling the factoids for this post. My notes are scribbled and vague at best and I do NOT have a doctorate in this stuff, but it is the next step in our journey through a greener hotel.
I did contact our friend Chuck at Vineyard Bottled Waters and whined…just as I did when I wanted to get greener products in the hotel in the first place. Only this time all I could say was: I forgot all that stuff you taught me.
Luckily for me, (and by extension, you) Chuck ROCKS and gave me all this data again and in dummy-speak so that I could write an article that would NOT induce mass narcolepsy.
It seems that coffee will kill me if I drink it out of certain plastic travel mugs! My lovely coffee, Nectar of Heaven! Certain plastics (PVC (polyvinyl chloride) to be specific) will diffuse toxins into the liquid it contains.
I think we have all heard tell of such things before. Some stimulate the growth of cancers, some, such as Bisphenol-A, don’t cause cancer to grow, but they do stimulate a resistance to cancer treatments. Well, spiffy! They don’t cause it, but they make your body stop fighting it.
Most people agree that paper cups are better health-wise. We already use paper cups here! YES!
Uh…wait! What I did not know was that paper cups are coated with a layer of plastic to seal it and prevent leakage. What kind of plastic? I don’t know. There are good plastics and bad, just like cholesterol, but I don’t have the equipment to give you a work up and no lab space in the Colonial Inn pantry.
Luckily, there is a line of paper cups coated with a coating of polylactic acid made from corn instead of plastic. So…drink more coffee!
We have switched from plastic to paper bowls and plates for our continental breakfast. They are made from sugar cane and bamboo. These seasonal crops grow quickly and thus, are more eco-friendly than cups made from wood pulp from trees.
Now, on to our cleaning products. This is much more difficult in terms of understandability.
If you want the long version of the explanation which follows, here is the factsheet (PDF download).
To sum up: Greening The Cleaning® is a series of all natural cleaning supplies developed for use in medical environments to create a healthier healing environment.
100% of all profit returned to the Center and the Imus Cattle Ranch for Kids with Cancer
In our search for an Eco-friendly product, we used samples of many kinds, but after our housekeepers were finished using them, they each said: “Nah!” when I asked them if the cleaners worked well.
Therefore, I straddle the finest of lines. I can’t go all Enviro-friendly if it means things don’t as clean as they can be, but the Greening The Cleaning product works great, smells great (no chemical Windexey smell from these products) and comes in a concentrate so is very affordable. Did I mention that Chuck actually offered to drink the cleaning solution to prove how safe it is? Now there's a guy who gets behind his products!(don't try that at home folks!)
This is a link to some info on how they rate their product and has more sciencey words like ‘surfactants’ and ‘Nonyl Phenol Ethoxylate’ if you like that sort of thing.
Hope I have not bored you silly! I need to find myself some coffee in a vegetatively sealed, non- Bisphenol-A rated, renewably resourced cup.
Now it's your turn - when you travel, what do you do to make your trip a little 'greener'?
Photo by e-magic
Posted by Joanne Sardini on Sun, Mar 21, 2010
The return of the sunshine to Martha's Vineyard this week has been a very welcome sight to those who have not made it off to warmer climes this winter. I've talked before about the patterns of life on the Vineyard and I was reminded of more of them yesterday. I didn't even realise that I look for these things every year until I saw them again. Yesterday I saw...
- My first flip flops - when I start to see toes again, it must be spring.
- Men in Shorts - there is a contingent here who wear them all year (crazy, but true) but yesterday they were everywhere.
- Out of State plates - on my short walk down Main Street yesterday I counted 5 states other than MA - the visitors are back.
- Mopeds - that familiar hum and inevitable traffic back up is back on the roads (personally I'm not a fan but if you like an element of danger on vacation and are anxious to see the MV Hospital ER, go ahead)
- Beach Umbrellas - Driving home I saw a great sight - a couple, under a beach umbrella, a cooler between them, enjoying the emptiness of State Beach before the summer hits! On State Beach, you often see rows of umbrellas from the road - they always make me happy!
- Crocus and Daffodils - I'm enjoying seeing signs of life in my yard.
Next come all the contractors and landscapers, the roofers and plumbers getting everything ship-shape for the return of the visitors and seasonal residents. The Colonial Inn re-opens for it's 99th season on April 15th, so we're getting ready too! Only a month and it is 'season', so the next few weeks are pretty busy around here with floor refinishing, carpet shampooing, painting, cleaning and generally getting ready to see and be seen.
What signs do you look for to tell you spring is here?
Photo of Snowdrops by lisihoff
Posted by Michael Wilson on Fri, Feb 05, 2010
I will attempt to walk a fine line in this article. I like our planet…I think we should keep it! It’s a ‘fixer-upper’, that’s for sure, but I’ve grown fond of it over the years. The more research I do into the realm of becoming ecologically responsible the more I feel that it could be impossible.
You will find no references to song by a certain Frog as I discuss the issue of going ‘Green’. To The Frog I will simply say ‘Ain’t that the truth, Brother!”
As a hotel manager, I make this VOW: I will do what I can to help our planet survive, but some of those steps take the involvement of our guests to be most effective.
The Colonial Inn has changed some of the ways we do our jobs over the last year and a half or so, and I will spare you the mind-numbing research in comparing and contrasting products…I will sum up the entire affair with the words ‘flaming hoops and ecologists with whips’!
We do not have an eco-manager at the Colonial Inn. We all wear many hats and there is not one person with the duty of making sure we are environmentally conscious. Each of us plays a small part of the process and we work at it during the course of our service to potential and in-house guests.
What We Have Done:
- Where appropriate, incandescent light bulbs have been replaced with compact fluorescents
- Every room in the Colonial Inn and the Edgartown Residence Club now has a small blue bin for all co-mingle recyclables.
- The shampoos and lotion in our rooms are in recyclable packaging and they don't need to be rinsed - our waste removal vendor told us that the small bits of shampoo and lotion left in the bottles do not damage the recycle process.
- Every guest has a choice whether have sheets changed and towels replaced daily during their stay. This helps reduce chemical and energy use in the laundry.
- We are reducing our use of plastics in housekeeping by using canvas bags to tote laundry instead of large plastic garbage bags.
- There are large co-mingle recycle bins in our lobby area and the front desk now religiously uses separate bins.
- We now send 99% of our confirmation letters by email instead of printing and mailing (Sorry Post Office...)
These are some of the steps in the process. There are drawbacks to each of these systems.
There is not a day that goes by without housekeepers or managers finding food waste contaminating the recyclables. The huge white arrows forming the global symbol for ‘RECYCLE’ on bright blue bins apparently confuse some people.
To use small soaps and shampoo / lotion bottles is an effort to conserve… resources as well as our costs. These little bottles sometimes make it hard to liberate the required liquid. However, with many one-night stays, there is a lot of soap and shampoo thrown away. So…bigger bottle = easier access, easier access = waste…argh!
The canvas bags for soiled linens are no easy feat. Such a simple step to conserve plastic bags, but on a property built in 1911 there are no rolling house cleaners carts (the hallways are too narrow and have little one-step risers at random) so laundry must be hauled, not nicely rolled and dropped like larger more modern constructions. It is a little detail, but speaking as one who has done his share of laundry hauling…it is a workout. The canvas holds more and gets heavier than the plastic and with no elevator, it is all human effort to bring laundry up and down four flights of stairs each day.
These are the ‘baby steps’ of our conservation system. There are more, but this article is already overly long for a subject like this. I may have bored you all to tears!
Sadly, I plan to do it again. Look for “Going Green…Part 2- ‘Meat & Potatoes’” in which I have learned that …everything will kill you! It’s my job to make sure it kills you more slowly!
That last line made more sense in my head…
Posted by Joanne Sardini on Sun, Jan 31, 2010
As Lane touched on in our last post, Martha's Vineyard is a very different place in winter than the beloved Island that most of you see only in it's glorious summer colors. This morning, I walked up to the top of the
Edgartown Residence Club wing of the building, as I do most days, and took a few minutes to look out on the Edgartown Harbor. I make a point of seeing the water at some point every day. Even if it is from the window. It's my version of the wonderful movie line that goes, "It's only an Island if you look at it from the water" (and I'm sure there are many Amity lovers who know that movie).
You see, the harbor is the pulse by which I measure the seasons. The ebb and flow of the tide is mirrored in the traffic patterns each season. As you can see from my photo, the sun is shining down on an almost empty harbor today. There are one or two lonely boats, bobbing on their moorings but otherwise, a deserted stretch of chilly water greets me. This isn't the case every day in winter though. It's Sunday today, so I'm missing the early morning rush of scallopers heading out to harvest their daily bushels and bring them back for shucking. If you have never tasted an Edgartown Bay Scallop fresh from the shell, then I swear you are missing one of the most amazing taste sensations in the world! Sweet and velvety, they are a treat to behold and worth a special visit during Bay scallop season which usually starts in mid November. I am lucky enough to have a few scalloper friends who make sure I am well stocked and a chef husband who lovingly prepares them in the simplest ways to let their flavors shine.
Every spring I watch as slowly but surely, the harbor once again fills up, until there are rows of neatly moored boats of all shapes and sizes enjoying all that life in this bustling summer town has to offer. I know summer is here when I see the Edgartown Yacht Club moor its pontoons for the kids sailing programs, then watch as all those little sails bob precariously in and out of the other boats while the children learn skills that I dream of having time to learn one summer! Huge and luxurious yachts become a talking point, "Did you see the one with the heli-pad?", "There's one with guards at the end of the dock - who owns that one?". Charter fishing boats take hopeful groups on high seas adventures, and the harbor launch works overtime shuttling people and their purchases back and forth to their chosen vessel.
Then the exodus begins. The pontoons are dismantled and stored away 'til next year, the families with kids and dogs in life preservers are fewer and there's a bit of a lull in harbor activity for a couple of weeks. Then mid September hits and brings with it the biggest event of the Edgartown Harbor calendar - The Martha's Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby The dates for this year's event were just announced, so grab your favorite fisherman/woman and make some plans! You can even take advantage of the Book Early and Save promotion at the Colonial Inn.
So, the harbor life continues, the fishing boats are pulled out of the water for the winter, the harbor empties and then, here we are again with a deserted harbor and bay scallops. I love to watch this cycle every year, mostly because I know that the next step brings another part of life on the Vineyard to look forward to. If you want to keep an eye on this cycle, check out our webcam, overlooking Edgartown harbor to see what's going on while you're gone.
Posted by Michael Wilson on Fri, Dec 04, 2009
It is the Holiday Season again, and with Thanksgiving behind us, the next big event on Martha's Vineyard is "Christmas in Edgartown".
Let me say up front that I am...less than enthusiastic, shall we say...of the Christmas season. I have an incredible dislike of commercial jingles, (did they start in mid-October this year? Curses...), smarmy holiday TV specials infuriate me and flamboyant decorating drives me nuts. I like a holiday of quiet reflection in keeping with my faith; I enjoy quality time with family without all the madness of shopping and messages of greed that assault us. I never achieve this, so I become a GrinchTM.
I know where this comes from. My mother is a very religious woman and every year, she vows to organize herself with her holiday crafts and gift ideas well beforetime and every year plans more than she can possibly accomplish. She wants so much to have a quiet holiday that every misstep in the schedule causes frustration and anxiety. Therefore, she cancels it.
From when I was maybe eight or nine years old until...well...two or three years ago, actually, my Mom cancels Christmas. All of Christmas, mind you. No half measures here. Dinners, cookies, trees lights, gifts...you name it, she's done with it. This starts anywhere from the end of September and last until two days before Christmas. We always HAVE Christmas, but the three months of ranting cancellations have perpetually dampened my Holiday Cheer.
Genetically, I tend toward this pattern, but I have an almost two-year old girl-baby. She loves Christmas. The photo shows her at the Wharf Pub last year at the Breakfast with Santa event. She doesn't look very enthused about it, but THIS year...well, from talking with her, she's ready this time. (Video evidence of this years trip to the Christmas Loft store tends to make me doubt this claim...but we will see!)
(If your browser won't display this video, click here to open a new window.)
Kate's enthusiasm for Christmas this year and participating in last Christmas in Edgartown events last year are slowly chipping away at my Fortress of Grinchitude.
Edgartown is beautiful in so many ways, throughout the entire year, but during the ‘Christmas' weekend December 11th - 13th, the town becomes truly magical.
The Edgartown Board of Trade organizes the weekends schedule the weekend, and posts a Calendar of Events. So many Inns and shops participate that there are very few places where there is no sparkly-wonderment to be found.
The excitement for that weekend is evident. Reservations requests for available Suites to rent for that weekend have been coming for months. The Edgartown Residence Club is participating in the Inns of Edgartown Tour on Friday and Saturday from 2-4PM.
From the lighting of the Edgartown Lighthouse to hayrides from Main Street to the end of Water Street, there are free events that are great fun for all ages. (Even I enjoyed seeing Santa cruise into town on a fire engine during the Saturday morning parade down Main Street.)
Several events, like the Felix Neck gingerbread cookie decorating or Donaroma's wreath making workshop, have a fee charged for the cost of the materials.
Some events have entry fees that support the organization's event. The Minniesinger's concerts on Friday and Saturday are a longstanding tradition on the island, and the kids put a lot of hard work into each production. A Holiday Soiree at the Daniel Fisher House benefits the Martha's Vineyard Preservation Trust.
For those of you who are bold advocates of a particular charitable organization now is your chance to call the shots! All you have to do is win the 4th Annual Cookie Tasting event at Espresso Love. The event proceeds go to the winner's choice.
The Dickens Village display at the Point Way Inn from 11AM to 5PM and the Faith Community Church's Live Nativity on the steps of the Old Whaling Church on Saturday will immerse passersby in scenes of Christmas tradition.
There is too much going on that weekend to pass it by.
My GrinchyTM heart may not end up two sizes too small that weekend.
Posted by Joanne Sardini on Mon, Nov 23, 2009
You might be looking at this blog thinking "There's something different going on here", and you'd be correct! We have moved our blog, and our entire Colonial lnn website to a new host to help us better manage all the great Martha's Vineyard news and goings on that we have to share with you. We hope you like the new look! If you find anything that doesn't seem to be working as it should, please let us know.
Photo Credit: RBertieg
Posted by Michael Wilson on Sat, Oct 31, 2009
Cool Pumkin
As I mentioned, Jim, our maintenance man, grew bored of winter island life. He decided to entertain himself by rooting around under the building for relics. Therefore, with fedora and bullwhip, he began his search for coins, arrowheads, old bottles etc.
We were not expecting him to find bones. Large bones. I’m no expert. I looked up the human skeletal system online and it looked to me like the thighbone. It had the L shaped knob that goes into the hip…
Jim found them sticking out of the side of the dig site and brought them to our attention. We called town hall first. In a town this small, everyone is going to know pretty soon so we might as well fess up.
Enter RED-Tape stage: Ron, the site supervisor for the construction company, agreed with us. He walked the bones over to the town hall and they told him to call the State Police. The State Police told us that they’d be right over to investigate. The newspaper photographer and reporter were here first.
Oh…by the way, we also needed to call the local tribe representative of the Wampanoags, the local Native American group. This whole affair made me a little nervous. Forget the scary bits…The fact that this street has had numerous ghost stories told about it, the phone call and bones…etc.
If the remains were human, the de/construction would have to stop until an investigation took place to everyone’s satisfaction. (I have a muddy ‘Slip ‘n slide” for the front yard of a hotel that was supposed to re-open in April. The LAST thing I wanted were delays!)
I feared for nothing. The Police sent the remains to the hospital for testing. The Wampanoag rep came and looked around. She gave us tips on what to look out for while further work took place and praised us for our diligence. Most people in these circumstances, she said, would have tossed the bones in the dumpster and kept on building. Forget the historical possibilities. She was going to call the newspaper and let them know how great we were…
What a let down this will be for some of you. The bones were not human bones said the hospital. They don’t know what they ARE, but they weren’t human. The newspaper made no mention of our historical uprightness of morality.
The digging recommenced the next morning and now all is right with the Colonial Inn world.
However, that doesn’t explain the phone call, does it? We may never know…
Posted by CJ Rivard on Fri, Oct 30, 2009
A Mysterious Phone call!
Due to the magnitude of the project of constructing the Edgartown Residence Club over that winter,
Colonial Inn Construction
we decided that we needed a maintenance man on hand to answer questions on where the water cut-off is, where the circuit breakers are, etc. He could also learn where the new installations would be for electricity and water. It would help with his maintaining of the building in the future; therefore, we asked Jim to spend the winter…
Jim is a Snowbird. He departs for warmer climes as soon as the hotel closes for the winter months. He reluctantly agreed to stay on and assigned himself tasks to keep himself busy. Intrepid Man of Maintenance that he is…he keeps busy well, but in a Curious George sort of way…forcing me to don a yellow hat to contain the wreckage. The beginning of our enigmatic events occurred while the digging underneath the porch wing was going on.
Now, a hotel closed for the off-season is a creepy place, exactly in a Jack-Nicolson-The Shining kind of way; but when you’ve emptied a wing and there are new creaks and groans from excavation, and people you don’t know wandering about constructing or de-constructing things, it gets creepier?…more creepy?…Extra creepish?
You find doors UN-locked that should be locked. You hear movements from the floors above where you didn’t think there was anyone working. But take my word for it, when you get a phone call on your office phone that your console tells you is from the abandoned wing…that tops the Casey Kasem Weekly Top Eerie.
It’s not just the fact that it’s post-season (we closed the hotel and there should be no calls from that wing). It’s the fact that we removed all the actual phones and brought them into the main building where they lie in state, still cocooned in plastic bags.
Theory: What if someone got into that wing AND brought their own phone with them just to creep us out? Plausible but for that fact that Jim…superhero of the maintenance world…removed all the phone jacks so there is nowhere to plug a phone in.
Whence came the call, I ask you? What are the odds that a practical joker would know which wires to splice a phone just to dial ‘0′?
It was all very puzzling.
Then we found the skeletal remains…
Posted by Joanne Sardini on Fri, Oct 23, 2009
Fall Sky by deel34
1. You HATE sunny days with temps in the low 60’s – “Give me the 90’s and humid or nothing!”
2. The only thing you hate more than that is a cool, crisp evening with a breeze blowing in the window – must have AC!
3. You can’t stand being able to walk into all the great restaurants with no reservations and still get a great table, great food and great service.
4. It drives you mad when people are friendly and helpful and can take an extra 10 minutes to show you their favorite spots to visit – you much prefer the harried and rushed service that sometimes comes with the summer crowds.
5. You always like to pay full price for everything – sales, discounts and promotional rates are not your thing at all!
6. Empty beaches are the enemy – long walks on the beach with not a soul to be seen sound boring.
7. You have no interest in learning – all the seminars, festivals and educational activities are an awful waste of time.
8. The highlight of your vacation is that 4 hour wait in the stand-by line at the ferry – it just wouldn’t be the same if you could get a reservation at the time you prefer.
9. Hustle and bustle are what you thrive on – serene views, quiet streets and a slower pace of life are hell for you.
10. Most of all – you LOVE to be stuck in traffic wherever you go – the 10 minute wait to get through 5 corners and the 20 minutes to get through the Triangle are what life is all about!