plume gables — Page 5

The Annual Plume Gables Jam Giveaway & The Golden Ticket Contest

October 4, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

It’s that time again, my sweet, gambling, lady lucks!

That’s right.

It’s time for the third annual Plume Gables Jam Giveaway!

Can I get a yee haw?

Alright. Firstly, allow me to tell you a bit about our fruit, property and why I like to can:

Plume Gables is situated on the West edge of Pocatello, right where the mountains rise up. It used to be a fruit orchard built of multiple acres of fruit trees — plum, apple and pear. Our property holds the original water rights to a spring creek that flows down from the mountains across the street from our home. We have 6 ancient, fruit bearing grapevines, one peach tree, three prune plum trees and three other plum trees that produce small pink plums ever other year. We water our fruit trees, vines, rose gardens and vegetable gardens with that little creek we own which involves hiking over to our irrigation box and pulling the gate which diverts water by gravity flow across a field of sage, under a street and into our yard. It’s pretty magical.

We’re the only individuals who have water rights to our creek before it dumps into the Portneuf River.

The water rights are deeded to this actual property.

This property has had three owners, including us, in the past 102 years. All three families have used this irrigation, grown this fruit, tasted the goodness that comes from this piece earth and I think that’s a very beautiful thing.

This year we have focused on making plum jam with our plum fruits because, quite simply, it tastes incredible. Our fruit is organic. Watered with fresh spring water from the Rocky Mountains. Never sprayed with pesticides. We let our plums ripen ON the tree and when they’re bursting with flavor, nutrients and holy sunshine we pick them, by hand.

We wash them.

We pit them by hand — we cut them in half, pull the pit and then quarter the fruit.

We then turn them into jam.

This jam is a low sugar recipe.

It’s sweet and it’s slightly tart.

I love it on freshly baked bread (such as the slice pictured above which is home baked and, yaa hoo, gluten free) with a few slices of extra sharp cheddar cheese.

The color of this jam is incredible! It’s sort of jewel-magenta-pomegranate-purple-red. If you care about the chroma of your breakfast, this hue might do the trick.

We have, at this junction in time, canned over 100 jars of plum jam and I want to share the magic of Plume Gables with you in two ways:

1. I’m giving 5 jars away. If you’d like to be entered in the drawing for this giveaway, please leave a comment at the end of this blog post letting me know you were here (please include your email address so I can let you know you’ve won)! You can say hi, you can tell me why you love autumn, you can tell me about your life, your love, your children, your dog, the carrots you harvested in your garden yesterday…..anything. There are no strings attached. Just let me know you were here. I do these giveaways because I appreciate your support, your friendship and having you in my world. Easy peasy. Simple dimple.

If, for some reason, the notion of consuming my plum jam makes your skin crawl but you still wish to leave a comment, please do so and simply let me know you aren’t interested in receiving any of my repulsive jam.

2. I’m selling some of these jars of jam in my Etsy shop. Last year, around the jam giveaway time, I had many emails requesting that I make my jam available in my Etsy shop, for individuals to purchase. I thought about it long and hard. RW and I crunched numbers, researched shipping costs and pondered on how to make it even MORE fun to get a can of this jam. In the end, we decided we wanted to do a Golden Ticket Giveaway — similar to Mister Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory Tours.

It’s a gamble!

We know!

But we think it’s a fun gamble!
And even if your jar of jam doesn’t have the golden ticket, you still have a jar of delcious jam. Right? Of course right.

Here’s how it works. We are selling an undisclosed amount of Plume Gables plum jam in the Etsy shop. Underneath ONE of the cloth covers is a golden ticket (or a leather ticket, in this case) which will allow one lucky individual to claim this necklace:

To have a chance at winning this necklace you must purchase a jar of jam.

They will be priced at $8 a jar.

Starting this afternoon, we’ll be listing them in the Etsy shop.

So there you have it! Either leave a comment and enter your name in the jam drawing or purchase a jar (and a chance to win that lucky rabbit necklace) from the Etsy shop!

May the luckiest ladies win!

Happy autumn and much love,

The Noisy Plume

CONTEST BLOG GIVEAWAY DEADLINE: FRIDAY OCTOBER 8. Midnight (MST).

***NOTE***
We are shipping this jam worldwide. If you are not in North America PLEASE DO enter the giveaway and please know that we will ship all jam purchases anywhere the postal services of the world deliver.

***THE GOLDEN TICKET CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED***
Because we are officially out of jam!!!
CAN YOU BELIEVE IT???!!!
Thank you so much for supporting us today! We were so thrilled to watch those little jars fly off the interwebular shelves over at the Etsy shop. You never cease to surprise us and it’s our delight to ship a little piece of our home and love to you. Also, thank you so much for pushing me up and over the 3000 item sales mark on Etsy! Wowee! What a number!

If you missed out on this batch of jam, fret not, the grapes are just starting to ripen here and we might do another Golden Ticket Contest before the season is through.

This said, the giveaway here, for five jars of jam, will be up and running until Friday at midnight!
xx

Filed Under: canning, giveaway, jam, plum jam, plume gables

And just like that…

September 14, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

…summer ended.

Baby, it’s good to have you home.
The next six months are all ours.
Let’s squander them on something good.

Plume

Filed Under: plume gables, smokejumping, summer

September 4, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

Greetings, salutations and a gladly glorious Saturday to you all!

I’m just home from the market. It’s a wonder I managed to pedal my bike home; I had a huge bag of veggies, a mittful of sunflowers and wee Penelope spilling out of my panniers. I was sure I was going to tip right over on a couple of turns I took whilst wending my way back to The Gables but I didn’t.

I suppose that’s the thing about tumbles, they always occur when you least expect them and when you think one is coming, it doesn’t.

Yesterday I saw a pair of fighting hummingbirds

zooming at each other by the concord grapevines;

cheeping like mad.

I thought to myself, if those fellows can’t live peacefully how can there be any hope for humankind.

I’m not usually so fatalistic, usually I can only see the good and the beauty in everything, but I suppose those hummingbirds caught me in a moment of soul frump and feeling grump. Really, animals fight within their own species rather often whether it’s rutting elk, horses establishing pecking order or dogs dominating each other.

I suppose the difference between animals and humans is that we fight over things like world dominance, oil, fouled up NAFTA agreements and ridiculous arguments over which personal liberties should remain personal liberties.

Sigh.

Let’s just all eat a piece of peace.

I’ve got to keep looking up to stop myself from looking down all the time.

All of that vague musing aside, there were these things:

1. A really beautiful nine mile run last night. Zooming over rocks, in and out of mountain shadows, wetting my hair in the cool of a spring creek, Farley on my heels, a covey of Hungarian partridge on the wing and the rustic rattle of tall, dry grasses waiting for their blanket of winter white.

2. My first day back in the studio. The humming of machinery. The smell of chemicals. The spark of my torch. The toothy grind of my saw blade deep in metal.

3. So much social activity. Firefighters. Friends. Cold wine and yam fries on the patio down at the train tracks beneath the West bench.

4. My mailbox. Stuffed to the brim with all sorts of amazing bits and pieces.

5. The brightness of the stars here. I missed them while I was in Washington.

6. The beets I’m roasting right now in the oven, that earthy, jewel magenta scent is filling the house. They make me feel swaddled in organic health.

7. This book. Which I flip through at night before falling asleep. It makes me feel normal (maybe even beautiful) when it comes to having collections of dead stuff piled up about my home. In point of fact, my dear friend Sue just brought me a full length shed of her boa constrictors skin. That sounds gross, but it’s really beautiful in texture and coloration. I’m going to put it on the wall.

8. Nesting. It happens to me this time of year after I’ve taken a lot of trips and collected a ridiculous amount of sticks, stones and shells. The rearrangement of my home, my furniture, my collections. Making the collections in my studio relevant with respect to my current inspirations. Cleaning said studio. Taking my coffee and tea slow on the front porch where the wind can ruffle my feathers.

9. Catching up on my correspondence. I’ve written so many postcards this week. Just random jottings to let people know I’ve been thinking of them. I fell right off the letter writing wagon these past couple of months which is unusual for me. I’m pretty passionate about the art of letter writing and to have not made time for it this summer has been a big mistake.

10. Officially and with great anticipation, counting down the handful of days until RW comes home. He’s on the brink of the end of his fire season and has actually already decided when he’s coming home. We have so many decisions to make when he comes home; our plans for the fall, winter and spring; the trips we want to take and the experiences we want to make.

I can’t help but wonder what this past week has held for you.

Why don’t you tell me?

I ask because I really do care to know.

So much of my relationship with you is one sided.

You know so much about me but my knowledge of you is so limited…

How does your Saturday fare?

Are you also obsessed with roasted beets?

Are there sunflowers on your kitchen table?

How does your soul feel?

Love, tea roses and tail feathers,

The Plume

https://www.thenoisyplume.com/blog/2010/09/04/778/

Filed Under: plume gables, pocatello

Home is Where The Tomatoes Are:

September 1, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

I’m home.

Boy howdy, it feels good to be in my nest of feathers, treasures, fur babies, grapevines and down valley drafts!

Speaking of nests,

one of the things I love most

about papasan chairs is they do

feel rather like a nest to me…

do you reckon the same?

Yesterday I made the thirteen hour drive from Tacoma, Washington (just South of Seattle) to Pocatello. It’s a monstrous distance when your iPod is out of juice the entire way and you’re the only one driving. Monstrous. But I made it and I’m settling into real life again.

I slept in a bit this morning, harvested a load of veggies from the gardens, TOMATOES TOMATOES TOMATOES, cleaned a bit, bought groceries and canning supplies (it’s that time of yearrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!), visited the chiropractor (I’ve got something bothersome happening with my neck), gardened some more, and at the moment I am attempting my first gluten free baking job — rhubarb crisp. I’ll let you know how fantastic it is tomorrow.

I’m going to try to be back in the saddle by Thursday which means studio hot as well as interwebular correspondence answered. I’d shoot for tomorrow but I think my neck needs to see a massage therapist…

Thank you all so much for traveling with me and for all of the glorious comments you left on my Washington posts! You’re so delightful, kind of like a kitten cherry baby octopus pie.

Love, love and love,

Plume

Filed Under: home, plume gables, summer

Breaking The Fast

August 19, 2010 by The Noisy Plume

For breakfast this morning, the fridge was looking barren, so I stepped outside and picked tomatoes, warm off the vine, and collected eggs, warm from the coop:

I medium boiled the eggs (as in not hard, not soft), cut the tomatoes in two and added a side of avocado.

A dash of salt!

A dash of pepper!

A perfectly fresh and awfully gorgeous little meal!

I washed it down with a cafe au lait and a glass of carrot juice.

Yum. Yum. Yum.

What did you have for breakfast?

If yours wasn’t quite this delicious, you’re welcome to join me tomorrow!

I’ll be doing this again except I think I’ll add some basil, for good measure!

Tra la la!

Filed Under: garden, plume gables, summer