Plums, Peaches, Huckleberries, Blackberries…

….Some of the ripe fruit we’ve been enjoying around here lately. I took these pictures last week.

Last year was a good plum year, this year is even better.

We’ve gone many years without any peaches on our peach tree, so eating juicy peaches right off the tree is the hugest treat for us this year. We got very few, but savored every one. When our friend came over and we fed her a just-picked peach, her eyes lit up and she said “this tastes like sunshine in my mouth!”  

That’s a great way of describing it, really.

Huckleberries are a fall treat, but we’ve had some near our house that are already ripening. Most of the tiny berries are out of Bracken’s reach, but you can bet he has picked and eaten every single ripe berry from what he could reach on the bush (and mama lifts him up to pick the higher ones, here and there.)

The blackberries are slowing down now, but we still get some ripe ones on occasion. 

I’m posting all these sunshine-y pictures, but today was pouring rain and thunderstorms. The first thing Bracken said when he woke up was talking about the chickens- especially Bear and Honey- and saying “Blue Ladder.” Blue Ladder is what he says when he wants to check for eggs. He climbs a little blue ladder and opens the doors on the nesting boxes to check inside. When we came downstairs, we found Jeff in the kitchen. He had quite the project going and expressed to me that he really needed the space all to himself so he could get it done. I understood and Bracken and I headed outside. If we were in the house, Bracken would naturally want to be in the kitchen, he likes to be wherever the action is. He went straight over to the nesting boxes and checked each one. It was early. No egg yet. So we got busy picking plums from the tree. It needed to be done, I’d been waiting for them to get ready. We had been picking a few ripe ones here and there, but it was finally time to pick a bunch of ripe ones all at once. Bracken picked up the ones that were no good off the ground and tossed them in the chicken yard. And he wanted to keep eating them and eating them. I used the tall picker to get them down from the tree and when they fell I made a game of it with Bracken and would race him to the fallen plum and grab it and put it in the basket up out of his reach. He thought it was funny. It may not sound like the nicest game, but I needed to do something to keep him from eating too many plums. We left the basket outside and went inside to eat breakfast. We planned on going back to pick more after we ate, but it started pouring outside. 

After Bracken’s nap we went to check the nesting boxes again and retrieve our basket of rain washed plums. Finding a little egg each day since Sunday, I was expecting one to be there. Bracken checked. No egg. He looked at me and said “oh well.” I thought that was pretty adorable to hear him say that and I think I was more disappointed than he was.

 This was the project Jeff was working on. He jarred up 10 gallons of pickles and kraut. We eat them raw, so keep them in the fridge. We cleared out our refrigerator to make room (and somehow managed to fit it all) and Jeff scrubbed out parts of the fridge. It looks so much better in there. I love a clean refrigerator! Especially one filled with so much fermented goodness. (By the way, I haven’t forgotten about sharing our favorite pickle recipes and have plans to do so soon.)

This was our plum harvest today. We have so many more to pick. 

And many are far out of reach (our tree needs major pruning.) 

I miss the summer thunderstorms from the Midwest, so I was very happy to hear thunder today. Bracken liked the thunder too and later he looked at me, asking with so much sincerity for me to give him “more.” He acted like it was within my power to give him more thunderstorms. Believe me: if I could I would, buddy.