Plum Good Stuff

When they're not eating the fence boards, the horses nibble on the tree over the fence.  That activity gives the tree a funny shape, with its fence side sheared off neatly at an angle.  

Still, it's a pretty tree.  I figured it was just an ornamental which the previous owners had planted.  The diagram they left us in a drawer said it was a plum tree, but I'd never seen any sign of fruit until last year.  

I picked two plums----hard ones at that--from the tree last summer. And, with the thorns on its limbs, I also figured any fruit on that tree would not be edible. 

Well, this year, the tree was filled with blossoms---except for its nibbled side. 

I started noticing little fruits developing earlier this summer but again figured they were off limits for human consumption. 

As they began to ripen and I could count at least a couple dozen little purple plums, I called a plant specialist named Bob and asked if the fruit would be okay for us to eat.

He said no problem, even with the thorns.  He suggested taking a plum, cutting it open and checking it for taste.  

I did that a couple of weeks ago, and, sure enough, the taste indicated a good piece of fruit, albeit small. 

So, I let the plums ripen even more, hoping they wouldn't be hard, like those hard-rock pears on the bush just east of the tree. 

Yesterday a plum had fallen to the ground so I decided it was time to pick the rest of the fruit.  Bringing out the ladder, I spent about ten minutes picking the crop from that pretty but lopsided tree. 

As I picked Lefty stood in the pen trying to grab at my bucket, but I told him he doesn't like plums.  He dealt with the news but not happily.

The plums went straight to the house and into a kettle.  I placed the kettle on a burner and turned it on to a low simmer.  By 4 p.m., the plums had softened and they were swimming around in a nice pool of purple juice.

Last night, a box of  Sure Jell and a sack of sugar came out, along with a couple of canning jars.  The 2011 picking from that plum tree yielded two jars of beautiful, tangy and tasty plum jelly.  

That's the good news.

The even better news is that there's another of those trees---unnibbled by horses---over in my garden.  It's boasting about twice as many plums as the other, and they're a different color, more of a red and yellow variety.  

And, yes, the tree has thorns, but I'm gonna take Bob's advice and cook up some jelly with those plums too.  If it's half as good as the small batch I made last night, we're on the road to being a plum farm.

Two other trees, one in the front yard and another in the west lawn,  have larger plums---on one the fruit is almost as big as a small peach.  

Again, there aren't a lot of them this year, but I'm figuring from past experience, once a plum tree gets going, the fruit amounts tend to multiply each year. 

So, that's definitely plum good news.  

There's more.  I dug up a potato from the manure pile yesterday, along with a bucketful of others (about three plants).  This potato could use a little skin care, but size-wise, those Southern Idaho spud farmers don't have anything on my manure-pile gems.

I'd say it's at least 8 inches long and about 5 inches wide.  I'm figuring on treating my BIG SPUD like a Sub sandwich. 

I'll slow bake it for about three hours, then split it down the middle and load it down with a bunch of high-calory accessories---butter, sour cream, onion bits, bacon bits, ham slices,  salt, pepper, etc.

Then, I'll stick it on the kitchen island on a big platter and let folks cut off their own spud sandwich.  

Yup, the garden stuff is good this year in a lot of different departments.  

Now, the corn could use a few more hot days before its ears mature enough for us to nibble on.

For, now, though, there's a damn mouse out there gobbling up the leaves.  I spied the little critter last night halfway up a stalk.  I told it to get lost.

Like all the mice this year, this corn thief is a bit on the brazen side.  It ran off and then came right back for more corn stalks, even while I was standing there.

So, I summoned Jonas, our new "cool cat,"  from the barn and directed him into the corn patch.  He's been a very efficient mouse killer in the barn. I know this because of the corpses I've found scattered about  and happily flung into the barnyard.

During last night's rodent-catching assignment, Bill and I noticed that Jonas has a hard time differentiating between the need to love his humans and to nab his mice.  The humans won out last night, and so did the mouse.

So, I'll keep sending Jonas to the corn and hope he gets the hint before that damn mouse eats all the stalks like my horses do with that plum tree's limbs. 

And, speaking of horses, I'm thrilled with my Heather, the pretty gray mare I keep trying to sell.  I think she loves her home enough that she'll do anything to stay here.  

I climbed aboard last night and started her down the road.  She walks like a house afire, but suddenly she started limping.  

Turns out she had lost a front shoe.  Despite that, I'm feeling like she's going to be a good little riding horse for an old lady after all.

So, things are pretty plum good around here this morning.  We still deal with the obstacles, and I'm hoping we're allowed to eat our corn before the mouse does.  All in all, though, I'm pretty happy with what the summer has dealt us. 

Happy Friday.