Goodbye October

The camera on my phone is so small and my slr camera is so big that most of my life is documented on Instagram.  Late September I made salsa verde out of all the green tomatoes that had yet to turn.  I like to can during the Summer but prepping for my art show prevented using my garden to the fullest.   This years garden was a eating garden but lack of heat produced few red tomatoes.

We also learned a valuable lesson late sept.  My boys are extremely allergic to wheat dust, especially Tyler.  They both hacked and coughed all night long.  Vapor Rub on feet and the humidifier was applied and we survived the night.

The end of October feels like the busiest time of the entire year.  Halloween and Tyler's birthday are a week long event.  Tyler's b day present was a really cool bunk bed and an invitation to a friend for a sleepover.  We also celebrated our friends two year old birthday and I had the pleasure of sketching his cute expression.

All in all October was very busy and very fun.  Goodbye October till' next year :)

native plum harvest and misadventures in jam making

When the plums turn I know Summer in on it's decline and fall is near.  This year is the exception Summer is still in full swing and every edible fruit is early.  This is due to the record breaking heat and drought.  Our plum thickets are on drip line so they do not have to worry about the lack of water so they produced massive amounts of fruit.  Every year depending if I have an infant (they seem to take up my spare time) I try to make plum jam.  Two years ago the raspberries and plums were ready at the same time.  Oh it was sooooooo good, sweet and tart and perfection in every bite.  Well, my raspberries are still white, so plain old plum jam it is.

We invited our neighbors Aidan and his lovely momma Stacey to help pick plums.  Tyler loves to pick anything edible.  To his mother's exasperation he is bound and determined to pick every unripe pear on the pear tree and peach off the peach tree.  So now that something is actually ripe he and his momma are very excited.  We also love that that we can share this harvest with special friends.

Travis wonders how many plums he can sneak while I take pictures

Travis only managed to swallow one pit.  Which I deem as a success considering how many he went after.  Now I am just waiting and watching for native plum leaves to poke out of his ears.  

Feeding the fish is FUN!

Fish hitting the surface

 Now time to process.  I really really wanted to use my victorio food strainer to prepare the fruit.  I will never, never use that machine for native plums.  From years past to make the jam only takes 2 or 3 hours.  This time it took 5 or 6 hours.  Partly from me ignoring directions and the plum's skins are to numerous and tough.  I foolishly left the pits in the first time and it jammed.  It takes at least 15 to 20 minutes to unjam the darn thing.  The strainer jammed 3 times and my I was done.  Oh the curses came and they came continuously and fluently.  By the time I had 6 and 2/3 cup i was 4 and 1/2 hours into my project. Oh the humanity!

Jam time!  I like to use the low pectin when I jam.  The flavors of sweet and tart set the fruit off perfectly.  Ball also has a great website for measurements and recipes http://www.freshpreserving.com/tools/reference/pectin.aspx .  The recipe is for 8 jelly jars, I only had pint jars so I received 4 jars for all my labor.  Disappointing but I learned many lessons from this plum season.

Wash the pretty plums

heat up plums so seeds are easier to pop out

Never use this to process plums from plum thicket.  I usually use a food processor and will from now on.  

A mess, I won't even show you the state of my sink.  

Follow the recipe and make your jam

All done!

Nanking Cherries and burnt jelly

I was pumped to start the canning season.  Usually I make cherry jam out of our sour cherries, but there were no sour cherries to be found.  However, there was an abundance of nanking cherries.  They are smaller than a blueberry and tart.  The recipe called for 16 cups.  We picked and picked.  Even a slight rain shower greeted us that evening.  Travis was sound asleep in bed when we traveled out after the rain to pick once more.  Tyler and Dustin will both tell you that I am a slave driver.  They begged to go back inside, but I was determined to pick just one more bush, then just one more bush after that.

The next day I discovered 24 cups of these tiny plump berries.  I washed, cooked, mashed, strained the cherries to prepare for jelly making.  The kids know when I absolutely cannot be at their beck and call because that is when they act up.  MOM!!! I want juice, gold fish, pickles, apple slices, strawberries, and toast tyler demanded.  Travis holds onto my leg and big fat tears fall to the floor.  All the while, I will be sterilizing jars, watching the juice boil, and adding pectin and sugar.  As this chaos surrounds me, I smell burnt sugar.  I BURNED THE JELLY.  All 24 cups of handpicked cherries were in this batch.  I finished my project, hung my head and want to cry and scream at the same time.

 Luckily a friend made me feel better the next day.  She said my nanking jelly has notes of caramelized sugar.

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