The Fruits of my Labor

Okay, to set the stage for this post we need to think back to August of last year. That was when we were considering purchasing this home, and in reading the listing it mentioned that there were fruit trees on the property. Now, we had looked at LOTS of homes prior to this one, and when the listing calls out something as a "feature" you are not sure what to think. After considering it for a while both Doug and I were convinced that they may have been talking about the blackberry bushes that are growing like weeds on our property. However, we were wrong...we really did have fruit trees on our property. Two beautiful trees bloomed and started to grow fruit. Now if only I knew what kind of fruit it was baring!

Now back to present day, these trees started to drop their fruit...fruit that didn't really look ripe. I decided to bravely taste one that was still on the tree, and to my pleasant surprise, it was delicious! It tasted like a sweet juicy plum. I turned to the Internet and found pictures that lead me to believe we have a greengage plum tree (they might both be, but the other fruit looks more golden, so it may be a yellow gage plum...but honestly I haven't tasted its fruit as the branches are too high).

So what does one do with plums other than eat them fresh off the tree (there are way too many for that option alone). I just happened to have my mom's dehydrator handy, and I thought I would give it a whirl. I watched over them as I carefully dried them, and when they looked like they were nearing dried perfection, I popped one in my mouth for a quick taste test. Okay, have you ever had a Cry Baby sour candy? You know, the kind that makes your jaw start to lock up as your mouth puckers at the tartness? Well, that was exactly what happened...my jaw started to lock up, my lips puckered, but instead of turning into a sweet pleasant taste that make the Cry Baby candies worth while, my jaw just continued to tense up and I finally had to spit it out. See, what I didn't mention above was that the peel of the fruit was tart, but it was a wonderful taste in combination with the sweet flesh...apparently when you dry up the sweet flesh, you are left with just sour peel. Luckily some people in this household are enjoying them. And luckily, I had dried some cherries with them just because I really like dried cherries.


The picture above shows dried apricots, my mystery fruit, and cherries. The apricots were the reason I had the dehydrator in the first place.