Claim Your Jam You Crazy Things:

October 12, 2010 by
Hear ye hear ye!
We have randomly selected our Plume Gables plum jam winners!
And for the record, when I say randomly, I do mean randomly.  I actually have a dear friend at home in Canada who usually does my random-number-winner-selection for me but she’s currently on holiday with another one of my friends (her best friend) and I don’t want to bother her.  So to select these winners, RW sat down in front of the computer and scrolled through the comment section while I washed dishes in the kitchen and every now and again I yelled out:

STOP

And then whatever comment the mouse arrow was perched on was a randomly selected winner.  He had to go through the comments a few times because I kept forgetting that I was supposed to yell out the stop command.  I know.  We’re so officially scientific, we’ll probably name our firstborn child Beaker or Bunsen Burner or Endoplasmic Reticulum…if we ever have a firstborn…

Without further delay, the winners:

1.  Zorah.
2.  Alicia.
3.  Avenue Fog.
4.  Jessi Sawyer.
5.  Emmy D.

I’ll fire you lucky five your winner emails from my glorious email firing contraption that looks a lot like a light violet cannon made of crystal and white feathers.  It emits light green lavender scented smoke each time it fires (oh my gosh, what am I even talking about???!!!).  But really.  The interwebular specifics are sort of unromantic, aren’t they?  I think it would be so beautiful if we literally fired our notes across the world to each other with the use of a crystal canon, light violet in hue, with snow white plumage on the barrel opening.
Just saying.

It’s so good to be home.
I missed you all.
Thanks for not finding my jam repulsive.
And thanks for taking care of RW whilst I was away.
And you people of Portland, how do you dry your hair?  
My hair was wet for 3 days straight whilst visiting your fair city.  
What a rainy old mess!!!

xx
The Plume
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Somewhere Between Here and There

October 11, 2010 by

There was a wood.
Green and gleaming light.
Rain.
Quietude.
Something holy waffling about on the horizon.
I ran through to the other side and back again
just to put a little wind in my hair.
Just to stretch my wings.
Filed Under: oregon

Wherein RW Makes An Important Announcement Concerning The Golden Ticket Contest

October 6, 2010 by
To all of the Plume’s birdies – this is RW.  Jilly Soup (The Plume) will panic when she sees this (and in this I will take great delight). I can hear her now, squawking like an obtrusive parrot, “you probably misspelled something!”  She thinks I do not no how too spel – ridiculooos!   Enough of that.

At the completion of the Golden Ticket Jam sale it became very apparent that an unbiased officiator of the Golden Ticket Contest was needed – hence I took over the packing and preparing of the Jam.  It is not that Jillian is unfair it is just that she can not help herself but feel, poke, and probe every cloth  jam cover that might conceal the golden ticket.  “Not in this one RW, maybe this one — oh no,”  was the constant chatter that filled my ears as she molested each jar of jelly shortly after the Great Jam Sale.   I knew what had to be done and banned her from the entire packaging and shipping process.  
[Evidence of Jillian fondling the plum jam…]

Rest assured that even I do not know to whom the golden ticket belongs.  In order to ensure the integrity of this contest I lined up every jar of jam (the golden ticket already under the cloth covering of one of the jars), randomly re-arranged them just for good measure, then  wrapped each jar in bubble  wrap (so there would be no possible way to feel, see, or detect the precious golden ticket short of x-ray), placed all the wrapped jars of jam in  three tubs,  then moved them to 3 new tubs drawing from the original tubs at random based on the make of vehicles passing by (GMC – move 1 jar from tub 1 to tub 3, Ford – tub 2 to 1 —–   ),  and finally  I had my good buddy B-Rad come over and re-arrange the jars one last time.   After  all of this I lined out all of the boxes to be shipped out and then grabbed a jar and put it in the first box, then the next jar into the next box and so on.  Please note that I only placed one jar in a box at a time, those who ordered more than one jar did not get the second jar placed in their box until every box already had 1 jar of jam – this was a critical step to ensure that each jar of jam in multi jar jam orders came from a different area in the holding tubs.   I am now printing all the shipping labels and all the jam orders will be shipped on Thursday – leaving at the same time – while we here at Plume Gables will wait with baited breath to hear from one of YOU.    

From The Glue That Holds Plumeville Together,
RW
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Three Little Birds

October 5, 2010 by
1 Bird.  Tomorrow I am going to Portland.  I will away until the 12th of October doing various things in various places with various peoples.  While I’m away, RW will be manning The Gables and The Shop.  I am not taking a computer with me.  I’ll be able to check email on my phone and if there’s an emergency of some sort (i.e. jam explosion en route, requests for gluten free bread recipes or questions on how to build a bird cage out of Popsicle sticks), I will have him correspond with you and assuage your curiosity and fear.  

2 Birds.  All shipping refunds for the Golden Ticket Jams have been submitted by my payment architect (who is also my Smokejumper) (and my lumberjack).
It was a very confusing and tricky process!  If you were expecting a shipping refund and you didn’t get one, please contact us through Etsy convos and we’ll iron out the kinks, see what the heck is going on and make sure all the monies are exactly where they’re supposed to be!
***To clarify:  Shipping refunds/adjustments were given to individuals who purchased more than 2 jars of jam because Etsy wouldn’t allow us to enter the correct shipping rates.  Also, some individuals made multiple orders and we had to backtrack and combine shipping for those purchases.

3 Birds.  I made this.  Doesn’t it make you want to eat mice and swoop around beneath a full moon?
See you when I’m home in Idaho again!
xx
The Noisy Plume
Filed Under: Uncategorized

The Annual Plume Gables Jam Giveaway & The Golden Ticket Contest

October 4, 2010 by
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
« Previous Page
Next Page »