Late summer preserves

Despite the suicidal plum epidemic early in the summer, we still found ourselves with plenty of plums and pears to preserve in September. We didn't want to see the food go to waste, and having gorged ourselves on more pounds of blueberries than I care to count in July, we decided that preserving might be a good idea.

To be fair, Ollie and Sunshine helped. We spotted them them sniffing, picking, and eating blueberries off the bushes, and twice I saw Ollie, who can jump 6ft straight up in the air, pick a pear and eat it.

We had never preserved anything before, so it was an adventure.
Spot can cook and I can't. Together, we peeled 9lbs of plums. I think I peeled 2 plumbs to Spot's 10. Fortunately after 16 years together, Spot knows that it's lack of aptitude and not lack of sincerity that makes me slow, so the plum peeling was a harmonious event.
9lbs of plums made 7 8oz jars of plumb sauce.

All of the pears on our pear tree made 2 24oz jars of pear sauce. Ollie ate two of our pears, and another 5 or 6 fell before we could harvest. Another two pears fed one of the local pileated woodpeckers. I got to watch him eat it while I was home in bed sick one day.

What I learned from our preserving adventures:

• You don't need to add sugar to fruit because it sweetens as it cooks.
• I love pear sauce.
• 2 24oz jars of pear sauce can be easily consumed in fewer than 7 days.