They're falling all over the yard. They bounce off the beehive. They fall on my head. (Truly. Right on my crown. I took it for a sign. I think I took it for the wrong sign.)
I'm on my hands and knees crawling through the grass picking up little red and orange cherry plums. Inch and a half fruits that look like big cherries and taste like mealy tart plums. Why am I doing this? To make plum wine.
I barely even drink. What for do I want plum wine? I can go to the store and get almost any kind of alcohol I want. In fact, I probably have on hand more hooch than I'm likely to drink in my lifetime.
And plum wine? I live in the land of the wine snob. Grape wine that is. Varietals and vintages and terroirs. Where's the snob appeal in plum? Come on, plum wine is for the backwoods. These plums are a weed. They are the local equivalent of the giant zucchini you can't give away.
Admittedly, I need to pick up the ones that are in my path. I walk all over the garden to water. I don't want to step on them and end up with the yard paved with moldy squashed plums everywhere. Nor do I want them to sprout into next year's weeds. And I hate to waste fruit. So as long as I'm filling buckets with them, I may as well use them.
It becomes a kind of sticky obsessive easter egg hunt. They're colorful and bright. I comb through the long grass and crawl into the underbrush where the neighbor cat has a nest. It looks like he has laid a clutch of little red eggs. My friends feel guilty about throwing them away. I feel guilty about spending all this time picking them up and processing them.
If I want to sit on the ground until my legs fall asleep and put things in a bucket, I could pull weeds. That at least would be a useful improvement.
You'd think I'd pick up the ones that are in my way or on the lawn and leave the ones I'm not likely to step on, but no: I feel compelled to be thorough. As long as I'm trying to use them, I want to get them all. And the hidden ones are the most fun to find. Bright red treasure, glowing like gems in the sunshine. They're irresistible.
Initially I was bending over to pick them up. Then they started falling faster. I need to sit down to reach so many without getting exhausted. Now that I've had to be away for a few days, there are dozens of plums per square foot in some parts of the yard. It's not only my compulsive tendencies that keep me picking up every one I find. I need to clear the space so that I can sit there and reach the next area. Most of them I can't even see until I'm sitting near - or, frequently, on - them. I've picked up thousands. It's getting more difficult as more of them accumulate from previous days, squashed or bird-bitten booby traps. And now that they've been there a few days, many of them can't even be picked up to throw towards the fence, where I'm less likely to walk. They're too rotten to grasp. I just have to sit in them.
But plum wine? Nobody makes wine from plums. From plums and water and sugar, perhaps. But just plums? Too thick, not sweet enough. Too much waste. I throw away almost half my volume in pomace. Well, I suppose I could make plum eau de vie with the pomace. But where do I get a still? Hmmm...
And worst of all I'm working with wild yeasts. For some loony reason, I won't do all the sensible steps of washing and cooking and sterilizing and using a proper wine yeast. I'm mashing them and letting them sit. I want to find out what I get with wild yeast. It's going to be tons of work for nothing but mold and vinegar.
But what if it works? It could be really special.
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