This is My Jam
I recently acquired some fruit trees. The lemons and oranges are pretty straightforward, and the only issue I run into is that I can't really use them fast enough. I always wondered why people would bring in heaps of home-grown produce to the office with a "take what you want" sign, but now I know. Also, let's be real. Many of the things you can make with lemons require a ridiculous amount of sugar. It's like seeing how the sausage is made, but with lemonade. And you can only make so many pitchers of lemonade before you start asking yourself if you should really be drinking so much of it.
The apricots are another story entirely. For one thing, in my head I was confusing them with peaches. Or I was at least picturing peaches in my mind as I watched them grow from small green spheres to small peach spheres. "I just need to wait for them to get bigger," is what I thought every time looked out at the tree. Nevermind that they were the perfect color. Nevermind that the branches were already weighing heavy from the small spheres. Nevermind that they started falling OFF the tree. I thought they would get bigger, so I waited. Luckily I realized they were as big as they were going to get and perfectly (if a bit over) ripe in time to harvest the entire tree's worth.
Of course, what does one then do with an entire tree of apricots that pretty much need to be eaten immediately? Naturally, I turned to jam. Nevermind that I had never made jam of any kind. Nevermind that I had to ask the store clerk where to find the canning jars (wouldn't you assume baking??). Nevermind that I only bought about half the jars I ended up needing. Nevermind that I came very close to only putting in a fraction of the required sugar. In any case, the jam got made, and it's more delicious than someone with no experience should have been able to produce. Really. And it delights me that both the apricots and required lemon juice came from my own backyard.
I guess it's jut refreshing to be trying new things, even if those new things require "working" tree fertilizer into the soil, far enough out to cover the "drip line." (Cue Moira and David Rose trying to fold in cheese.) Here's to next year's harvest!