Dance of the Plum Fairies

When we bought our current home, the sellers boasted that the plum tree in the front yard bore incredibly sweet plums. We had had a plum tree in the backyard of our first house, which yielded exactly enough plums each year for one plum tart, so the prospect of more tarts and maybe some jam was exciting. What we didn’t realize was just how much of an over-achiever this tree is.

Along about mid-August, the green fruits start blushing the palest of lavender, then darkening, until the first week of September. Inevitably, we have a single autumn-like storm, and in its aftermath, we go out and gather plums that have fallen. We know it’s time to start harvesting.

Over the years, we have developed a system. Firstly, we call over an extra kid, usually Nose in a Book, since she’s a natural extension of our family, a hard worker and a pleasure to have around (she also eats a fair amount of plums). Then we dig up an old theatrical backdrop from my other life and stretch it out under the tree. We get containers, many of them, and put on grubby shirts. Darling Husband dons thick gloves, flexes his burly arms, and walks up to the tree, crouching under the low, gnarly branches. He calls, “Ready?” We give him the green light, and he reaches up to the chosen branch and shakes until we scream, “Stop!” The next few minutes are spent frantically gathering fallen plums, trying not to step on any. After the obvious fruit is found, it’s a bit like an Easter egg hunt, finding purple ovoids hiding under leaves and putting them in a basket.

Our small collections empty into a large bucket, which is run upstairs to the kitchen sink when it can’t hold any more. The process continues around the tree, each branch getting at least three good shakes, until Darling Husband and the gatherers can’t take any more.

This year we have a bumper crop: my oversized sink is nearly full. I inherited two boxes of jars from my Mother’s move; I dig in the garage and find another partial box, but I can tell they will not suffice. The kids set to work layering pitted plums with sugar in a big pot (thank goodness I found a 25-pound bag of organic sugar at Champion Foods), and I start lining jars up in the oven to sterilize.

We get one batch of jam simmering, then a second, and then a third. In between stirring pots, I whiz up a two wheat-free tart crusts. I top one with Dijon mustard and fresh tomatoes from the Redmond Saturday Market, and then squeeze as many cut plums in as I can into the other. In the end, we have over two dozen jars of plum jam, a plum tart, and a sink that is still three-quarters full. The fruit flies are organizing at the kitchen window: we have to do something, and soon. As late afternoon winds down to suppertime, we roast some weenies over a fire and discuss our options. We could buy more jars and make even more jam (we still have half a bag of sugar left, but there’s little shelf space in the garage); we could give away fruit. We have to take Nose in a Book home after supper and s’mores (we’ve got to use up those leftover marshmallows!), so we decide to bag up plums to drop at friends’ homes along the way. I call and leave a few messages, letting those lucky folks know that the Plum Fairy may stop at their house, We also throw in a few jars of jam to sweeten the deal, figuring they will be so happy about the jam that they won’t notice that we just gave them way too many plums.