Organic Granny

Delicious Roasted Plum Jam I am very grateful to live in a place of bountiful fruit. In our yard we have grapes, thornless blackberries, a golden plum tree, hazelnuts, saskatoon berries, blueberries, apples, green figs, and quince. We have an Italian plum tree that has not yet been very forthcoming, but that's okay, because this year two friends gifted us with lovely dark blue, plump, little prune plums. Another friend sent over some sweet, delicious pears from her tree. We are blessed with delicious fruit and generous friends! So, what to do with all these plums?  It is true that I love fresh fruit.  I blame my un-fruited childhood in rural Saskatchewan.  Yes, we did have berries of many kinds, wild and garden-grown, but we did not, or at least on our farm, have any large tree fruits... crabapples don't count.  But here I am with a surfeit of fruit in my twilight years.  And I am adverse to all the work involved in making "preserves" in the traditional w

My current number one beef with the dollar stores might also be shared with a bunch of Pinterest and assorted website promoters: those neat little plastic organizers (containers, baskets, etc.) look good for about a year, and then they... disintegrate!  They have a much shorter life than the shopping bags we get from the grocery stores! Maybe they are made of corn starch or rice starch or ??  In any case, perhaps we should be putting them in our compost bins?? (I'm joking) I guess you do get what you pay for?  Who knew? I have begun to replace the plastic storage/organizational containers with wire baskets, also from the dollar stores.  I also use large pretty dishes and trays in our main bathroom (yes, made from glass, pottery, ceramics) that I purchased at my favourite thrift store (" Too Good To Be Threw " in Courtenay, BC-- the prices are reasonable and the profits go to support programs for women and children escaping abuse).  The work to bring down the cl

Healthy Aging: An Oxymoron? A Healthy Brain Workout A while ago, a friend who was doing some at-home care-giving for her husband who had a terminal illness, called to invite me to go with her to a "workshop about brain health" that she read about in our local paper. Like many "boomers"-- that is, people born in the 1940s to early 1960s demographic-- I am interested in layman's "brain science" where it relates to my being able to make some practical lifestyle adjustments to extend the life span of my brain's health, and, I hope, forego dementia and Alzheimer's disease. I said "yes" to her offer. When we arrived I was surprised to find that the workshop was being presented by the local chapter of the British Columbia Alzheimer Society. I have older relatives diagnosed with Alzheimer's and thought that perhaps this would be a way to learn about how to avoid getting that dreadful aging disease. The brochures laid neatly out on one

Ripe Green Figs from the first (breba) crop of the summer When we first moved to Vancouver Island (November 2005), my husband was in awe of the neighbour's wonderful fig trees.  So we planted our own.  One of the two we planted withered and died (cursed?    Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, "May you never bear fruit again!" Immediately the tree withered. When the disciples saw this, they were amazed. "How did the fig tree wither so quickly?" they asked. Jesus replied, "Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer." Matthew 21:18–22  The Holy Bible In time, however-- maybe about s