The harvest has begun. Haphazardly and thank God for grocery stores or it would be a very strange winter ahead. The one fruit tree that was absolutely loaded was the juice plum, I think it may be a Santa Barbara but I’m not an expert. In any event the branches are bent down with fruit and just as they started getting pink I found the deer standing around eyeing them with the same considerate look as me. I hung some sheets on the lower branches and that did the trick. The deer have gone to someone else’s yard and 80% of the tree ripened in 3 days. They are so juicy they can only be eaten over the sink which is fun for one or two but… So I steam them into juice and there is now a gallon in the freezer and 10 pounds of plums making wine in a bucket.
Other than that, there is 5 pounds of rhubarb in the freezer and yesterday the Excalibur 2000 (the dehydrator) came down from the top shelf for the first picking of salal berries. Everything else is hanging back waiting for it to warm up. The slugs are not hanging back and I’ve taken to donning gloves and a flashlight when I let the dog out at 1 am. I go slug hunting while she’s busy and we both go back to bed content.