Plums-A-Plenty

Autumn annouced her presence by dropping the temperature to the 50s earlier last week. She breezed through the backyard, ignoring the cries of my warmth-loving vegetables as I hurried to harvest the last of this season's crops. Summer will soon be but another memory. Maybe there will be song about the summer of 07?

Time flew by once again, and summer is almost gone. The cold is a welcome change, and I know that about four months from now when the snow storms and blizzards hit my backyard, this temperature in the fifties will be a heat-wave for us. But at this moment, the fifties feel very cold compared to temperatures in the nineties last week.

This time of year also brings out the late harvest of peaches, corn, zuchinni, tomatoes, and an array of wonderful fruits and vegetables appear at the farmer's market and farm stands. This signals canning season, and I am itching to try my hands on jams, pickles and fruit canning this year. Funny how things like canning seemed trival before, but since having kids, I felt a need to try canning! Maybe something to do with the gatherer in me. The weather's cooler in the mornings and evenings, and the farmer's market are bustling with fruit stands this time of the year. All the fruits and vegetables look so good that I have a hard time picking out what fruit to bring home from the fruit stands.

Bought my first hot water canner, glass jars, and all the equipment needed for my jam-making experience. I am going mass production (10 half-pint jars) compared to my little recipes made in my breadmaker for 2 cups at a time and stored in the fridge. Oh yes, I am getting stored up for the winter! Actually, I'm making these up as gifts. So, if you are reading this and you get a jar, act surprised, ok?

Had a case of delicious sweet plums thinking that my kids would go for it. But not a chance! They didn't care of the tart-tasting skin, and wouldn't go near it unless I remove that thin pieces of sour skin for them. I should have known that my little munchkins prefer peaches than plums. As I quickly grew tired of the chore of peeling plum skins, I slice them up with a thin band of skin, thinking they might just eat the whole slice. This is what I ended up with.
So, I made jam with the rest of them plums. Yes! All 4 lbs of them plums.Long story short, after a couple of hours stirring at the stove and canning, I have these lovely jars of plum jelly. The long cooking and proper canning proceedure ensures that these plum jelly will keep well up to a year without refrigeration, but I don't think they will last that long.