Posts Tagged ‘plum jam’
Trailer Loads
We resumed moving trailer loads of composted manure to the high spot of the hay field yesterday. We got to this just one day after an overnight thunderstorm would have soaked it in nicely. Better late than never. We received a whopping quarter of an inch Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.
It was nice that the horses came out to graze while we were working in the field. It’s rewarding to have them calmly accept most any project we do that infringes on their space or disturbs the peace of their surroundings.
Being free to open gates and drive inside their territory without them threatening to take advantage of an opportunity to get beyond their fence line makes our activity that much easier.
Coincidentally, Cyndie discovered that neither of us had chained the barn gates earlier; an oversight that could have let them escape through the barn. We leave barn doors open all day for airflow, although there is a hanging screen that covers each opening and keeps pigeons out.
No harm, no foul, as they say, but mistakes like that trigger a chill down the spine when we discover them. On the plus side, it renews our vigilance for quite some time afterward.
Maybe Swings was aware the gate wasn’t chained. When we showed up to serve dinner, she was giving Mix the business in a most demonstrative way, pinning her ears and backing up toward Mix with an unusual intensity and duration. She absolutely would not let Mix get near the alleyway between the two sides under the roof of the overhang.
The alleyway is where the unchained gate was. Mix is the one most notorious for nosing that gate open while I am doing the housekeeping and Cyndie is filling feed buckets. Maybe? Although, I don’t know why Swings would have a problem with them getting out. Maybe she doesn’t want to jeopardize a good thing.
I eventually opened a gate between the paddocks that is beyond the waterer and coaxed Mix to come around the long way to get over to her side for feeding. At that point, the four horses stayed put and focused on food.
Earlier in the afternoon, Cyndie and I went out and shook down as many ripe plums as we could from the wild American Plum trees populating the brush and bramble along our northern property line. By dinnertime, Cyndie had canned 10 jars of plum jam. I helped pit the olive-sized fruit these trees produce.
It was an extreme exercise of tolerance for me to allow my hands to become covered with squished fruit, which meant the knife handle was a mess and all my sensibilities were tripped well beyond my usual comfortable mode of operating. Yucky! Somehow, I survived.
Today, Cyndie will be heading to pick up her mom to drive to the lake for a long weekend. I leave tomorrow to begin a week of biking and camping in Missouri. No more trailer loads will be moved in the foreseeable future.
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Plum Jam
The volunteer wild American Plum trees growing in a bramble along our property line and along the edge of the compost area have been showing good fruit this year but have been ripening at different rates. Yesterday, we decided to take the plunge and collect a batch for making plum jam.
I suggested we bring out a sheet to capture fruit that falls when shaking the tree. Cyndie handed me the sheet and sent me into the bramble to spread it beneath the branches. Easier said than done.
One reason we didn’t want the plums to fall to the ground is that Asher has shown an interest in eating them and can get to the fruit faster than we are able to pick them up.
The sheet worked well enough, despite the plums falling from a wider area than it covered. That was probably a good thing that kept us from trying to process more than what we had time to deal with yesterday.
Cyndie spotted a lone plum that had landed in the crook of a bare branch.
I got my hands messy helping to pit the plums and did my best to support Cyndie during the cooking and pouring into jars.
The plums aren’t overly sweet but Cyndie succeeded in mixing in less sugar than the recipe called for and taste tests had us both agreeing the flavor was good; not too tart.
The telltale “ping” of lids popping during dinner indicated the cooling jars of jam were sealing as hoped.
Since our harvest of wild black raspberries was lighter than usual this summer, it feels good to be able to take advantage of a different free crop that nature has provided. We ended up filling 18 jars of varying sizes with homemade plum jam.
The flavor stands no chance of competing with my passion for Cyndie’s wild blackcap raspberry jam, but I intend to enjoy the plum jam plenty since the fruit is from our property and was canned with the same loving care as all the goodies prepared in Cyndie’s kitchen.
Also, because we spread it on toast, and toast is just about one of my favorite morning treats. Toasted bagels, brown bread, honey wheat, or the all-time greatest, toasted homemade bread of any type (including Gramma Betty buns).
Guess what I want for breakfast this morning.
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