I'm a jerk and I'm not giving the recipe for my plum wine, but here's how you can very easily make yourself a plum cordial to serve as an after dinner treat for the holidays; Get yourself a one or two quart jar. Sanitize it. Fill it with washed plums (golden or purple). Add 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar per quart. Fill with a good quality vodka. Add a single cinnamon stick. Hide away for 3 months, and then remove, strain, and enjoy.... carefully.

It seems very appropriate that the golden plums in this photo look like grapes, since I've harvested them for the purpose of making wine.

I picked 20 quarts of them, in order to produce about 5 gallons of wine.

Tune in around Thanksgiving for the first tasting notes. (and the recipe, if I'm feeling generous)

Here's a quick little lesson in natural history for my readers; Sitting on my hand in this photo is an immature House Sparrow (Passer Domesticus) that I pulled from a nest. Lots of folks would see this bird as a fully-feathered adult passerine. What gives it away as a youngster is the bright yellow at the sides of the beak (the gape opening). Most altricial nestlings have an enlarged (and usually brightly colored) gape opening that distinguishes them from the adults of their species. This trait quickly disappears when the youngsters leave the comfort of their nest (which would happen in about 3 days for the individual shown in this photo). However, the coloration on the inside of their mouths remains conspicuous for quite some time, particularly in species that create and maintain some sort of social heirarchy, such as the corvids (crows, magpies, ravens, jays). They say that you learn something new everyday. Hopefully that covers it for you. If not,... go to some other site and enrich yourself.

I mentioned that work has been wearing me down a bit and keeping me away from some of the things that I love, but the truth is that even when I'm at work, I'm usually enjoying myself. I have an absolutely fantastic group of co-workers/employees that make it all worth it.

Their energetic youth, spirit, devotion and vibrance is contagious. This shot was taken at our most recent "theme night." Occassionally, (quite randomly, actually) the crew will decide to don themed garb and play appropriate music. It's almost always the subject of great amusement for our customers, but of equal importance is the boost it provides to employee morale through a strange sense of "group" or "belonging." Even if that "group" is dressed in thoroughly embarrassing Disney costumes, or awkwardly colored and fitted cowboy hats. Whoodathunkit?

Please don't ask about the creature that is balanced upon my head, (it's a long story, honestly) but notice how tired and frazzled it appears to be. Okay, okay it's dead, which is technically a step or twelve beyond tired, but the relevance is that I have been feeling just about that used up lately.

And these guys are (in part) to blame. Too many late nights and long days is not a good recipe for feeling healthy and well-rested. Additionally, the work schedule that I keep at this time of the year is somewhat intense, and I'm using that as an excuse for my recent absence from this blog. But the expressive endeavors of Lesley Yoder, Jon Carling, and Watson Atkinson (you can look up all of them on MySpace if you're interested) have inspired me to make an attempt at revisiting my creative side. Ideally I would be putting ink to paper right now, creating an epic piece but as it turns out, this blog site lends itself well to the initial urges that an aspiring artist feels when planning an assault on the next canvas, scroll, or sheet.