Welcome
The Inn at the Rustic Gate is a place of welcome and calm for every season. We invite our guests to take a step back from their every day lives, to return to nature, to peace and quiet, and to get in touch once again with what feeds their soul.
Just seven miles from Big Rapids, situated on 150 acres of woodlands, wetlands, rollowing meadows, and a private pond, the
Inn at the Rustic Gate is a sanctuary, a retreat, a meeting place, and a gateway to the truest aspects of ourselves.
This Month from the InnkeepersAPRIL 2013
We are well into the month of April, and spring is still only within the realm of hope here in our part of Michigan. In spite of what the calendar might say, and even though it's been 3 weeks since the start of spring, the season so far feels more like a series of broken promises than the onset of blue skies and warmth. On April 1st when we woke to snow covering the ground, I chalked it up to nature's April Fool's joke on us, but when that was followed by a dusting of snow again several days later, I was muttering "enough already…." . And now here we are on April 12th in the midst of an ice storm. As TS Elliot once said April is indeed the cruelest month. .
But on the brighter side of things, the red winged blackbirds, robins, Canadian geese, and sand hill cranes are back and making a convincing case that in the hopefully not too distant future the season will be here in more than in name only. And to our excitement we spotted a new type of duck on our small pond that we had never seen here before. It was a buffalo head duck, and if you've ever seen them you know that they have this beautiful black and white, yin and yang pattern to their bodies. And the torrential rains of the last several days have washed away the majority of snow piles that have been tenaciously lingering on for far too long. Also there are the slightest little spears of iris and spring bulbs starting to emerge from still semi-frozen soil. Hopefully this layer of ice will not be too damaging to their tender shoots.
