Plum butter, boys

I finally got around to making the plum butter I was going on about last weekend when waxing rhapsodic about Italian prune plums. Naturally, the day I intended to make them, they weren't quite ripe enough, but alas. This is a simple, flavorful spread that is both beautiful and intensely plummy, as you'd hope it would be. Though the skins are left behind in the food mill phase, they cook with the plum flesh long enough to stain it a dark, rich magenta. Gorgeous, and hard to photo once canned; this pic doesn't do the hue justice. I'll try again later when I've spread some on toast. Today has felt very long, friends. T left for NY early this morning, and as Ol is not in camp or anything right now, and Jack goes just a few hours in the morning, I'm wearing the Mom hat a lot! Walks, experiments with a disposable camera, painting, making a tray with their handprints on it, generalized mayhem, a bath for Percy which always results in more mayhem, and in the midst of chopping the plums, I cut the bejesus out of my pinkie finger. T has been nuts over knife-sharpening lately, and this was a quick and deep slice into the old digit.

I wasn't sure if it would require stitches so called the boys out of quiet time after just 20 minutes because a tightly-wrapped band-aid seemed like a prudent first start, and I needed them to bring me one (I was applying extreme pressure at the moment AND did not in any way feel like dealing with the hospital). It then seemed wise to teach Jack how to make a phone call should he and Ol ever be home alone with me or T and one of us got hurt. So, we made a phone list and hung it in a place he can access easily and practiced calling my mom and my cell phone. Check that off the list of things to teach!

Aren't they cute in this pic?