As you know, I love my barn and I cannot wait for it to be ready for a bride's special day.  It still needs some structural repairs and the floors need some work, but a girl can only wait so long to have a party.  Inspired by Sunday dinners at my cousins house, the Phineas Wright House is proud to host seasonal barn dinners.  We set a long table for 20 guests, $75 per person, bring your own wine, make 18 new friends.  Fun, right??

The menu was a celebration of seasonally inspired, locally sourced produce that included:
Course One: Trio of Garden Goodness featuring our own tomatoes, basil, chiogga & bull's blood beets, and french breakfast radishes with "THE" french butter.
Course Two: Shaved Zucchini Salad with toasted marcona almonds and parmesan
Course Three: Roasted Pork Tenderloin with bing cherry sauce, Roasted Cauliflower-Caramelized Onion Tart, Blue Lake Green Beans with shallot & pancetta
Course Four: Bourbon Poached Peach & Fresh Blackberry Cobbler

I have to say that the actual event was even better than the dreamy experience I planned in my head.  A local artisan built 3 gorgeous farmhouse tables for me using wood that we removed from the third floor hay loft.  I've been collecting mis-matched chairs from thrift & antique stores, flea markets, yard sales, the side of the road and even our transfer station.  My new friend and amazing custom wedding invitation designer, Meagan Sears of the Brocade Blackbird created beautiful menus and favor tags for the big night.  My dear friends and visiting house guests from CA helped me hang mosquito netting and market lights, place decor and even penned our fun "Bolton Local" chalkboard.  My neighbor, Marie helped me shuttle platters of yummy courses from the kitchen to the barn, and dear new friends gathered around the table.  I can hardly wait for the next one!

Special thanks to Kristen Turcheck of Kristen Jane Photography for capturing these lovely images!

I know I've made it abundantly clear that there is no time for us to vacation, but hooray for California friends and family that added us to their itinerary this summer.

My brother, Michael and nephews Jackson & Connor joined us at the beginning of July.  We explored the Freedom Trail in Boston, ate ice cream every day, and even incorporated some farm chores.  Coincidently, their visit overlapped with my sister and her family's trip to Cambridge so we had the opportunity to spend a very rainy Independence Day all together.  I can't remember the last summer holiday I spent with the southern CA contingent of my family.

With just a couple of days to launder and iron sheets (yes, I iron my sheets!) our next group arrived.  Jason & Emily Bergendahl with their fabulous kiddos Lucas, Jenna, & Rachel made our house a stop between J's family in Lenox and our mutual friends on the North Shore.   The Bergendahl's have a gorgeous home in Cupertino and I often use their guest room when I'm in town for a wedding.  One lovely plus is that there is never any dog hair on my clothes when I visit because they have no pets.  That can be tough on a kid - to not have something small to love - so we've come to a great arrangement; Lucas has a golden retriever and the girls have chickens that just happen to live at Ms. Wendy's farm.  Their visit included ice cream every day (a theme!), strawberry picking, and leisurely dinners.

Fast forward a few weeks to my dear friend Jamie and her daughter, Tabitha's visit.  Jamie and I met over 20 years ago when we were neighbors in Southern California.  She is one of those fabulous friends that you can pick up with wherever you left off regardless of how much time has passed.  Tabitha is about to start her freshman year at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego; we are ALL so proud of this amazing and delightful young woman.   Their visit was a perfect balance of sight-seeing interspersed with crossing things off my very long to-do list.  We visited Boston, Concord and Rockport, MA, went peach picking and got the barn all dolled up for my first Seasonal Barn Dinner.  And yes, there was ice cream!

Overall, I would say summer is a more difficult transition for me than winter was.  The humidity and mosquitos are unbearable at times, but I have found out the secret to summer happiness in Massachusetts... ICE CREAM.

The ice cream here is better than any I've had in California.  In fact, I ate more ice cream last summer than I have in the last 10 years - no joke!  There are countless family owned dairy farms with small batch ice cream counters open from mid-April to mid-October delivering all kinds of creamy goodness.  Full parking lots, long lines, and men in suits eating ice cream in their cars at 2:00 in the afternoon.  I LOVE this place!

I've decided it would be a noble effort to attempt to identify the "best" ice cream in Massachusetts and I am completely committed to this mission.  To be fair to each establishment, I order the same flavor at each stop - Chocolate Peanut Butter (oh my yummy!)  The current front runner is Rota Springs Farm in Sterling, MA.  The ice cream is delish and the cows are wandering around the property so you can thank them personally.  Let's have an attitude of gratitude people!

It's far too early in this process to declare a winner, but the contenders are:
Kimball Farms in Westford, Lancaster, Carlisle & Jaffray, NH (I've tried in each location and although they are bordering on a chain with all these options, they are small batch at heart)
Bedford Farms in Concord (super snobby high school girls with terrible customer service skills, but this is an ice cream competition)
Berlin Farm in Berlin (unfortunately they do not have chocolate peanut butter, but I do my best with the 40 other flavors)

Still on the list to try is Rail Trail in Pepperell, but I'd love to hear your favorite too.

Although I LOVED housing my little chicks in their luxury pen in the basement, the fourth of July marked 8 weeks, time to move to their big girl space.  In anticipation of the big move we had  a new foundation poured for the lower barn and transformed a portion of the former potting shed into a chicken coop.  Thankfully, my brother Michael timed his visit with my nephews perfectly since I don't know the first thing about building a coop.  A vacationing engineer who knows how to use Keith's table saw coupled with a chicken loving farm girl turned out to be the perfect combination for crossing off this very important "to-do".

These little ladies love their new digs and their day time access to the property.  Hamish does a pretty good job not chasing them.  And we are eagerly awaiting the first day of fall when they will be old enough to give us some delicious eggs.

Well, it's official, sweet Keith has a red neck and I'm sporting quite the tan line from my rubber boots!  I have heard of a "farmer's tan" as it applies to the upper arm paired with a t-shirt, but I honestly did not know the term "Red Neck" was just that.  I thought it meant you had cars in various states of disrepair on your lawn.  And, never have I heard of a distinct line from one's rubber boots... I even have a circle from where I pull them on!  In my former life I took great pains to guarantee a very even tan, even if it meant laying in odd positions on my chaise by the pool.  Ah, a moment of silence for tropical vacations...

We are in the thick of summer so there is no time for day dreaming; we have chores to do!  Keith identified a great space for a vegetable garden and before I knew it he had marked off a 50' x 40' space (perfectly lined up with the corner of the house, of course!) He built raised beds and a rustic, yet artistic fence that he created using found pallets that he disassembled, painted with steel wool - soaked vinegar and tea to turn each piece a different patina, then reassembled the panels and added them to the base of the fence.  We are harvesting beets, carrots, parsnips, sweet peas, pole & bush beans, melons, lettuces, squash, peppers, fava beans, herbs and eleven different heirloom tomatoes. Corporate finance by day, green thumbed super hero by weekend.

We are very ambitious people (Keith with his huge garden and me trying to turn this beloved space into an event venue) with no extra cash to hire help so we are busy all day long, every day just trying to keep up with the rapidly growing grass and even more prolific weeds.  We eat dinner at 9:30 or 10:00, clean up, fall into bed and do it all again the next day.  We are blissfully exhausted!