Plum madness nearly over

Let's see. Canned plums, check: plum jelly, check. Chinese plum sauce, check: dried plums, check. Plum wine: in primary fermentation. Nice fellow will move to under apple tree tomorrow. I think there are enough good plums still on the tree for me to make more of the plum sauce (it's really good, though it's a color that would frighten you if you came upon it unexpectedly, or in a dark alley), or maybe that plum thing that personhead dragonet2 gave me the recipe for.

Sadly, after spending hours trying to figure it out, I do not have a name for the troubles the plum and apricot tree have. But I do have a remedy, short of euthanasia. So I have a plan, more or less, around that.

Plum madness ends just in time for apple madness to begin. Let's see: I have I think seven quart and three pint-and-a-half jars I can put apple juice into. I do not think this is a good year for me to make cider. Well, it could be. Dried apples are stupid, unlike dried plums which are cool. Apple butter, good, applesauce, better. Apple pie is wonderful. The only problem the apple tree has is worms, which I have been treating faithfully with codling moth traps to no avail. I don't think it's brown apple moth, because the moths I saw were different looking in ways I cannot remember.

Speaking of euthanasia, did I mention that the old refrigerator, which I have roundly hated for the last several years of its life, finally gave us an excuse? The fan motor gave out, or went moribund, anyway, and started making loud noises and stinking up the place with that burnt-motor smell. If your refrigerator does that and you like your refrigerator, you have it fixed. But that refrigerator had tiny cracks all through its structural plastic, and almost everything nonessential was broken: crisper drawers, the shelf that sits on them, door shelves, door handle . . . it was just hideous.

So we got a new one from Sears. We could not afford it: but we're breaking out the last bit of savings anyway to send the boy to Prague, and there's enough left over to buy the fridge. The nice fellow believes to the bottom of his soul that having black appliances is worth an extra fifty dollars, so it's black. To bore you with more details: it was the smallest non-stupid model they had -- 18.2 cubic feet (I know, those of you from countries where they use rational measuring systems are thinking, "what's next? is she going to give the energy usage in poods per fortnight?" but hey, I just live here). It was the least energy-greedy model they had. And let me tell you another effect of a Republican administration: several years ago when I first started daydreaming about replacing the refrigerator, the models that were on display at the Sears store were markedly lower in energy usage across the board than the ones available now. And they varied more. There were more sizes and there were more different options. Now most of the refrigerator models are humongous and take too much energy. One improvement is the almost-universal glass shelf instead of the annoying wire ones. They all had split shelves, which I think is a good thing. The vegetable drawers are tiny, though. I think a large head of cabbage will not fit in one. So I have retained one of the plastic bins I was using to replace the broken vegetable bins in the old refrigerator, and I've put it on a shelf and filled it with leeks, cabbage, carrots, and celery, the things that don't fit into the bins. Also went online and ordered an extra door shelf to put little jars of mustard and pickles and stuff on.

I love having a functional refrigerator and refrigerator light.

Now, if I can get the dishwasher freed from its prison, fixed, returned, and defended from groat, I will be happy.

and for my next trick . . . desperation peaches

My friend Connie came over to borrow a sawzall, a ladder, and a crowbar. She had to take down her shed today. The neighbor's landlord had decided it was an eyesore and bugged the City for months to get them to make her take it down. Finally she got an ultimatum, and today was the day.

She has a peach tree. The peach tree was having a mast year just like our plums, apricots, grapes and apples. However Connie won't be able to get to them for a while so it was kind of a kind to take the first batch of desperation peaches from her and do something with them.

No jam. The nice fellow doesn't like peach jam. Also we already have apricot and strawberry jam and the nice fellow insists that he will make blackberry jam this year too.

The reason these are desperation peaches is that they are windfalls and therefore have flaws in them. Lots. I have two gallows of compostable stuff left over: skings, funky parts, etc.

So far I made three dehydrator trays of dried peach wafer and two of peach leather. I put up five pints of peach chunks in orange juice. I am plsnnind on filtering the juics and combining the sudge with the leftover puree from making the peach leather, but that will have to happen tomorrow as I am falling asleep here.

Also: River Run winery, and a party for Utban Watch volunteers in the park. And a visit form Rosemary and Moher.

No writing done to speak of.