Weird weather out there...

No rain yet on the North Shore, but Central Mass (home to both sets of parents) have had quite the storms pass through.  Both had tornado watches/warnings, but thankfully nothing developed.

I guess weird weather is our new norm?  I ventured outside to get some shots of the crazy light created by the sunset through overcast skies.

Hope everyone is safe out there.

Kitchen Video

We had a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend in Wareham, and then closed out the three-day holiday with a lovely Ipswich-y day at Crane Beach.

I've had a few requests from frequent readers for some updates on the blog.  The truth is we've been busy the past few weekends with Ryan's end of semester, wedding planning, and yes, a little flopping.  One reader suggested a video tour of the kitchen.

Here goes nothing...

Scenes from the McThiem Kitchen

The Kubota Cometh

(Of course I actually don't have pictures of said Kubota.)

Saturday morning started off with much excitement when Cait’s parents arrived with their trusty Kubota tractor on a flatbed trailer, stopped traffic on 1A, and expertly backed the truck and trailer down our wee driveway. Cait’s dad brought the Kubota to help dig up the remaining berry bushes in the raised bed that Ryan and I had previously gone to war on.  Along with the Kubota, Dad brought a soil sifter to screen all the earth and remove as many roots, rocks, and other debris as possible.  Mom came ready to prepare the planting beds for another season and to transplant rhubarb, daylilies, and forsythia from Turnpike Road.

In the midst of all this activity, that cosmopolitan, new-New Yorker Caitlin Bourque dropped by for a visit. I left Ryan, Mom, and Dad to the yard and Caitlin and I brought Tela over to Appleton Farms for a quick walk with some Ipswich girls I’ve recently met and their lab counterparts. We had a rainbow of labs – black, brown, yellow, and light yellow. It was great to get out to Appleton and though I always do enjoy my solo walks with Tela, the conversation was much better and so good to catch up with Caitlin!

Caitlin and I returned from Appleton to quite the scene at High Street. Ryan and Dad had dug around and cut down a couple stumps in the yard and moved on to larger projects. Ryan was up in our 30-foot cedar tree, preparing to take it down with my Dad. This plan had been hatched up over a bonfire and wine, so Mom and I were quite surprised to see it becoming a reality. Dad and Ryan really put on a show for Caitlin’s first trip to High Street.

After tying a rope to the top of the tree, Dad and Ryan drove a stake in the lawn, tied the tensioned rope to it.

After sending the Women Folk into the house, Dad notched the tree on one side. Around this time, our neighbor Bob came out to see the show and to inquire if 1) he should move his truck and 2) if we had insurance.

After notching the tree on one side, Dad cut the other and, wouldn’t you know, the tree fell right where it was supposed to.

We immediately noticed a huge difference in the amount of light let into the yard, much bigger than anticipated (in a good way!). Dad and Ryan then went about cutting off all the limbs and hauling them up to the transfer station. We are currently taking suggestions on what to do with this handsome cedar log. Thoughts? Offers? Hit me up if you have ‘em.

After a tour of the house for Caitlin, Mom, Caitlin and I headed over to Wolf Hill to pick out a few more plants for the yard. We picked up a blue hydrangea for the raised bed (on Ryan’s request), a white/pink peony (my current obsession), and a clematis to keep the one Ryan’s mom gave us last year company. Caitlin said her farewells, and Mom and I headed back to do the planting.

Mom showed Ryan and I (gardening newbies) how to put in plants. Apparently, our soil is in pretty good shape, but we did add some cow manure compost to each hole, as well as some organic plant food for “acid loving” plants in the case of the hydrangea.

Here’s the (for now) petite hydrangea, which will eventually grow to fill this bed and be about 4-to-5 feet in overall height and diameter.  

The forsythia will spread out horizontally and up. We planted it in the middle of this fence section and will prune it so that it runs from the raised bed to the right post.

Here’s the peony.  I’m not actually sure how big this one will get, but Mom told us to plant it with the leaning side towards the fence.

After Mom put in the new clematis, I ran twine on the pergola post and across the front, and did the same for Denise’s clematis that is already thriving this spring. We are also going to add Morning Glories on the other front post (same spot they were last year). Can’t wait for them all to get climbing and cover the pergola.

After the Kubota was loaded up and Mom gave us final instructions, we said our goodbyes, Ryan and I cleaned up the yard, and surveyed our progress. Look who I caught sneaking a nap. Some of us were very tired.

Sunday morning, we got up early to avoid a line at the dump and after our weekly visit to Mello, visited Todd Farm for the first time. Todd Farm is a massive flea market in Rowley open Sundays throughout the spring and summer. We’d been told the trick is to arrive early. We assumed it was to get the good stuff before someone else did, but we quickly found out it was to get parking. Our 8:30 arrival apparently was rather sluggish.

We left Todd Farm with a couple treasures, and kept within our (very modest) self-imposed spending limit. In addition to a copper lantern (reproduction, I think) to hang on the pergola, we scored ourselves a perfectly dimensioned breakfast nook table, previously used as someone’s studio table as evidenced by paint splatter, which we just love. 

Here she is in the nook.

All this before 11:00!

For the rest of the day, we turned our attention back to the (ever-growing) final kitchen punch list. We secured the island to the floor, and then the marble top to the island. We also installed these oil-rubbed bronze beauties under the lip of the marble.

Thanks to our neighbor Bob, the kitchen was at full functionality with running water and everything, so we also worked on pulling out our kitchen belongings from the barn, box-by-box, and cycling them through the dishwasher.

We continued with touch-up work on the cabinets, Ryan built half the chase for the PVC pipe vent in the cabinet above the stove, and I painted interiors. We also took some time to figure out where everything will live in the kitchen, and to organize the cabinets in the mudroom (a portion of which will serve as our pantry).

After our first adult trip to the supermarket in nearly a year, I got to cooking an actual meal. Fittingly, I used a recipe from Caitlin – feta orzo salad, and Ryan grilled some lamb. I was in absolute ZEN cooking. Besides just the monumental inconvenience of living without a kitchen for a year, I really do love cooking and have missed it so much in my life.

Dinner was delicious.

After dinner, we spent about an hour just staring out at the kitchen from the nook and talking about how far we’ve come. Best movie I’ve ever seen.

(Yup, we’re still relying on the iPhone camera. I will really try to address this in the coming week!)

Trust us.

The kitchen looks amazing. But Cait’s camera is living at a friend’s house in Dedham and Ryan’s iPhone just doesn’t do the project justice.

After a silly Friday night out in Salem and Ipswich with Eric, T, Dave, Fred, and his Tatyana, Eric and T donated a day’s work on the house. Projects included: painting the front room ceiling, touch up paint on the kitchen and front room walls, painting cabinet interiors, painting the door out to the mudroom, painting the bathroom doors, scrapping and painting the radiator (now white!), installing the stove vent and cabinet above, installing under cabinet lighting, re-installing the kitchen radiator, painting the stove shelf, painting two chairs for the nook (white again), unpacking long lost kitchen items, and doing a little decorating (Ryan found the perfect spot for a collection of copper tea kettles that his mom Denise and aunt Deb cleaned up for us and gave as a housewarming gift last summer – they look fantastic). Whew! If all goes as planned, we’ll be coming home Monday night to running water, a working dishwasher, and a brand new garbage disposal.

(Though neither here nor there, I am also compelled to share that we had a fantastic Saturday evening in Ipswich at our friend Ben’s 30th birthday party. It involved both the Ipswich Ale Tap Van and a pig roast, not to mention great company and really beautiful event design courtesy of Ben’s talented mother… lots of wedding inspiration for this bride-to-be!)