Travel Green … Before You Leave Home
- At August 24, 2011
- By barbara
- In blog
BEFORE YOU LEAVE HOME:
Turn water heater to “Vacation” or lowest setting.
Turn off AC/heat or adjust the thermostat to protect plants, etc.
Turn water off at outside connection (to prevent flooding should a pipe break while you’re gone). When you return, turn on the water slowly and check for problems.
Appliances, such as TVs and cable converter boxes, should be unplugged because they can draw or “leak” as much as 40 watts per hour even when they’re off.
Turn icemaker off (lift wire) to prevent flooding should it break while you’re away.
Lower the temperature of waterbed heaters at least ten degrees.
Stop your newspaper. You may be able to donate it to a school.
Beaching It!
- At August 23, 2011
- By barbara
- In blog
Business at the inn is unlike any other experience has ever been when I was working for others. We love what we do so much, and our guests are so wonderful. But once in a while it’s important to take a little time off, and enjoy time together outside of the inn. Over the past 2 days we have had a super time just “vegging” and taking time for us. Spending time together at Fire Island … great weather, great food, super people, and great relaxation … has been amazing. We’re ready and excited to get back to the inn, and to our arriving guests.
Check Out What People and Pets are saying …
- At August 21, 2011
- By barbara
- In blog
Maxi - Hostess wiith the Most-ess
Check out what our human guests are saying on TripAdvisor, and what our four legged lodgers say about us on BringFido.com
green ROCKS inn makes Bloomberg news
- At July 31, 2011
- By Admin
- In blog
green ROCKS inn makes Bloomberg news thanks to the civility and sanity of NY State’s most recent decision.
New York Prepares for Same-Sex Wedding Surge as State Makes Unions Legal
Barbara Simkins might have been just another struggling bed-and-breakfast owner after opening the Green Rocks Inn near the New York state line in Ridgefield, Connecticut.
After her state’s Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in October 2008, Simkins, 60, was named a justice of the peace. She performed more than 75 weddings for such couples in 2010 and may more than double that number this year.
“We saw an opportunity,” she said of the inn she runs with Natacha Merav Friedman, her 41-year-old fiancee. “We’re doing very well.”
New York’s June 24 enactment of a law permitting same-sex marriages may provide a shot of much-needed economic stimulus for the country’s third most-populous state. It may also draw new residents after the population shrank almost 1 percent to about 19.4 million people in the past year.
A study released last month by New York’s Independent Democratic Conference, four state senators who favored the new law, found that same-sex weddings would generate about $284 million in economic activity, producing $26.8 million in tax and fee revenue in the first three years. They estimated that about half of the state’s 43,000 same-sex couples living together would marry while more will come from out of state.
