Pick-a-little-talk-a-little

When we bought our house ten years ago, I was elated to have a variety of fruit trees. We had a plum, 3 peach, apple, necterine, and we planted a pomegranite bush. Two of the peach trees (including the white peach tree) was infested in bugs and only lived for a year. We ended up burning the trees out and putting the garden in that area. The necterine has been a weak tree and has refused to produce anything of worth and the pomegranite, although 5 years old, it has yet to grow any bigger. The apple tree also only produces a handful of blossoms and apples. Each year I say that I'm going to take out the necterine tree, but the blossems are so bright pink and pretty, that I just can't do it. I keep praying for the apple and pomegranite to step it up, or they are going to end up in the fire pit as well.

All of that sounds really sad!!

Thankfully the plum tree and peach tree have made up for the lack of success with the other trees.

This past weekend was picking time! Luke and James were priveliged enough to pick ALL of the fruit. My boys are so great to help me with the canning. Last month we picked 50 pounds of cherries at a local farm and my boys pitted them all!!! Now we all enjoy our fabulous cherry pie filling.


But first, another side story. When James was 3 we had lived in the house for about a year and a half. I peaked out the window one day and saw his little feet dangling off of the roof! I come out and ask him what in the world was he doing!? He replied that he was getting his toy.

So you can imagine how I *laughed* when I came outside and saw James sitting on the roof picking the plums. >sigh< He was even in the same place.

So they picked and picked and picked!! And picked me 46 pounds of plums!!! It was AWESOME! I was so delighted! James then became out official plum cutter and Luke set off to pick the peaches.--He ended up picking almost 20 luscious pounds!

The next day we were able to make 37 pints of plum jam, peach jam and peach-plum jam-plus we froze some peaches. The jam even turned out nice!! (Unlike my last batch of raspberry jam that I over cooked and is so thick that you can't even spread it...such a waste of raspberries. ) We had a great time together! We listened to The Beyonders and had some great conversations about just about everything as we cut, blanched, mashed, sanitized, bottled, and more. Great memories...at least for me anyway.

If the world ends, I will have enough jam to trade for ANYTHING! I do wish that we could bottle when it wasn't so blasting hot. Seriously! Its 108* outside and I have all of my stove burners on high! I am so thankful for fans! We did save enough plums to snack on (although, after all the plum work, none of us are really in the mood to eat any.)



Apples are next. I can't wait!! Even though I end up purchasing apples from local farmers, I love making applesauce and pie filling with my boys. Ohh and I can't wait for pomegranates!! If anyone knows of any bright red pomegranate bushes (the super sour pomegranates) that I can pick in late Sept. or so, I will happily come and pick them (I will bring my boys too) and then we will bring you some pomegranate jelly! BEST JELLY EVER!

I feel very fulfilled when I do my various bottling. It is a great feeling to do this work with my family. Hooray for work!