we belong to each other

A few weeks back we dis­cov­ered another gift from 1011 12th Street, a plum tree, in our very own yard, laden with deli­cious tiny plums. Actu­ally no one knew what kind of tree it was for a long time. There were guesses that it was a cherry tree by the looks of the fruit. Some­one tasted an early fruit and absolutely didn’t like it. I think the unripened fruit freaked them out. We all avoided the tree. But then a nice man came and was pumped and picked hand­fuls and shared the good­ness with us. Now we know.

So, this week I decided to pick a few buck­ets before they were gone. Mar­got hung out with me the whole time. She finds solace in the shade of this tree. She is able to watch birds and remain aloof all day. But she was happy for me to come visit her in her zone.

It took be about an hour to pick and pit. This I did alone. It was fun and ther­a­peu­tic. After­ward I had a bowl of pit­ted fruit and stained hands.

That is not to say I did all the work myself though, really I only did the easy part. Laura picked up some jars and sugar at the coop. We had a late night of mak­ing some decent tart jam. Exactly as I want jam to always be. Not too sweet, nice and gooey.

It was our first time can­ning and it was a real expe­ri­ence. I was extremely ner­vous and intim­i­dated by the process. Laura reas­sured me and told me that I was a geek for freak­ing out too much. Turns out, the process is really mel­low and now we have seven jars of extremely deli­cious plum jam. We are sav­ing some for the win­ter when fresh local fruit is scarce.

I’m really only writ­ing this post to boast. Sorry, but it is so deli­cious and I think about it con­stantly, like LOST.