Plum Crazy

A Brother-in-Law called Wednesday night and asked if I wanted some plums from his tree.  As plum jelly is my hands-down favorite, I said, "Yes!"  He said he'd leave them in a bucket on his porch for me to pick up on my way to work the next morning.  On Thursday morning, I got in my Jeep and drove straight to work without even thinking about plums.  It was late in the day when I left work on Thursday, and I still didn't think about the plums.  They didn't cross my mind again until last night, when he showed up at my back door with the bucket.  He set it under the patio table, and then we all went out to dinner.  I had a couple of margaritas at dinner, and when we came home, all I thought about was putting on my jammies and crawling into bed.

This morning after The Husband came inside from feeding the cat, he said, "There was a party on our patio last night."  I gave him a perplexed look.  "'Coons or 'possums, most likely.  There are plum pits all over the patio."  I ran to the back door to see for myself.  Sure enough, the patio was littered with pits, and there were a bunch of half-eated plums in the bucket. 

I brought them inside, washed them, and tossed out the half-eaten ones.  Just as I was about to drag out a cookbook to see what to do with them, Nanny knocked on the front door.  "How do I do these plums?  Just cut them up, cook them, and juice them out?"  Nanny said she doesn't even cut them up.  "Just reach in the pan and squish them."  Easy enough.  I added a little water to get them going.  They're cooking right now.

Today will be a busy day.  By the time the plums finish cooking, we'll be leaving for the first of two birthday parties, so I won't have time to make the jelly today.  Besides that, I don't have enough sugar in the house to make jelly.  It looks like the juicing and jellying will have to wait until tomorrow.

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As promised, Pop-Pop rigged up an electric fence around part of the big garden.  He strung two wires, low to the ground, to keep out the squirrels, raccoons, and rabbits.  He says he'll put up a third wire, higher on the posts, to keep out the deer when the peas and beans start to bloom.  I asked him if he'd electrocuted anything, yet.  He said a rabbit had run up to the wires, but the jolt sent it hopping back to the woods. 

Heh...way to go, Pop-Pop.  :)