The Fourth Annual Plum Jam Giveaway

Good morning sparrows and starshines!
It’s my complete and utter delight to announce the fourth annual plum jam give away here at The Noisy Plume.  I can’t believe I’ve done this four years in a row now!  It’s something I look forward to every fall.  The truth of the matter is that I simply love being able to give away a little piece of my property here in Idaho.  And let’s just be bare bones honest for a moment, this is some of the best jam on the planet Earth.  I make a big deal about it, true, but whenever people have their first taste, they’re eyeballs get big as a bullfrogs and they nod their heads yes and affirm the truth of my bragging.

So. 
Without further delay,
here are the details!
________________________

Last year, we did a fantastic golden ticket contest with the plum jam, as you may recall.  We sold nearly 100 jars of the stuff over in the Etsy shop — one lucky person won a pretty little necklace with their jam purchase and it was fun and a wonderful gamble.  Sadly, packing and shipping nearly 100 jars of jam nearly killed us and while we’d have loved to do it all again, we are a bit busier than usual this fall, here at The Gables, and a simple blog giveaway will have to suffice.  Forgive us for not going above and beyond this year.

As always, I love to give you a quick run down about the plums we use in this jam.  Plume Gables boasts a beautiful little, creaky old, 104 year old farm house on an original stone foundation on a piece of property that formerly spanned the entire street.  It was originally a fruit orchard!  We are the fourth family to ever own and love this property (though the first two families were the first and second generation of the same family).  Deeded with the land is a charming set of water rights to one of the spring creeks that flows down off the mountains on the West side of the Portneuf Valley.  With this water, we irrigate all of our ancient grapevines, rose gardens and fruit trees.  It’s a romantic and historical detail about our home since when this little chunk of land was originally homesteaded, the same creek water was used to feed an entire orchard, and more.

We do not spray our fruit trees with any pesticides.  
Plums are hand picked when they turn a ripe, 
deep purple on the trees.
These beautiful gems are organic as can be,
watered with holy water from a spring that wells up out of the mountains we see from the front windows of our home, and they are filled with the nutrients that only a sun ripened fruit can hold.
We hand pit these plums with old fashioned paring knives,
quarter them and then turn them into jam with the help of a low sugar recipe.
The flavor is unbelievable,
tart and sweet.
The color is like magenta rubies,
as you can see modeled on this delicious little
fluffy, hot-from-the-oven buttermilk biscuit:
I’m giving away five jars of the stuff.  
Since I couldn’t muster the golden ticket contest this fall, I am including these jars of jam in sweet little packages that will include:
 My favorite loose leaf herbal tea.
Hand picked and bound sage bundles, beautiful for sniffing and smudging…
and a few other items that will remain a surprise!

If you’d like to enter your name in this giveaway, please leave me a comment on this post.  
Tell me anything you’d like, but I’m especially interested in hearing about how autumn makes you feel and what you love most about it — if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, tell me about the shifts you’re seeing as your world moves into summer!
If you’re shy or thin on time, just say hi.


Please leave only ONE COMMENT, if you can.
And please include your email address 
so I can contact you 
if you should win.

Everyone is welcome and
I will ship internationally.
Contest closes on Wednesday at 10PM, MST.

As always, thank you so much for being part of my world and for being some of the most incredible, kind, supportive, gracious and loving people I’ve ever brushed up against.  
Happy autumn!

Love,
The Plume

Then came the stormy days of autumn.

 Winter comes.  I too will build my bed of silk.  
I too will love the sun when she rises and miss her when she sets.

 These veined, rumpled, multi hued vessels of spentness — newly released from the fingertips of trees — are so delicate and so content to catch the rain instead of the wind.
 When I’m old and my mind and hands are clumsy, I hope to be just as full of grace.
 

 All of Nature’s confetti seems resigned to the fates dictated by the seasons; gathered up in a finale of colorful clouds in the tree tops, fistfuls there on the forest floors and clustered in the spring-fed mountain water as it flows.  That confetti has spun around, crackling and clanging its overripe, organic rhythms (those mourning songs for the decay and death of chloroplasts) for a short spell.  The light has grown too dim to capture.  Wary of the hard frosts, it modulated a cyclical song in minor keys, turning teary variations over and over in the thickness of the wind, before the cold began to creep down from the mountaintops.  And now everything is settling, yellow, orange and red carpets the floors here, waiting for blankets of white, waiting for the lacy whispers of solid state, the hard winds of dagger and ice from the North and the sleep of the slumber months.  I purse my lips and carefully blow my breath in a column towards a heavy grey sky; my eyes can see the white.  The white, it comes.
 Roots sink deeper, closer to the warmth of the core of Earth and we all hold on, just a bit tighter, as we spin and make our way around the sun.

The magic…

…is in the details.














Bloomin’ Heart

Well, I finished this darling little jackrabbit a few minutes ago.  Look at his bloomin’ heart!  Two carved coral roses in red and pink.  So delicate.  So fine.  We should all be so lucky to carry such beauty and growth and life in our hearts!

He perches atop a sterling hollow form platform and rolls a pearl around beneath his front feet.  He loves autumn and has been leaping through a beautiful pile of freshly fallen leaves, kicking up his heels, flicking his long ears and all that other rabbit stuff.
100% handcrafted by me!
And built with so much love.
This fellow is darn tootin’ special.
In other news, today, whilst deep conditioning in the shower, one of the orchids I keep in the bath dropped this leaf down into the tub.  KERPLUNK.  Look at those blending hues of green and red.  So gorgeous!  I’ve been carrying this leaf around in my back pocket all day long.  RW keeps grabbing it and pretending he’s going to throw it out and then I shriek and he gives it back and I tell him to kiss me.  
He’s such a brute!

Next time I enamel.  I’m going to recreate this leaf and these colors.  
And if at first I fail, I’m going to try try again
until I get it perfect.

Today everything is filled with so much life submitting to the seasons, changing colors, fading away…  I’m paying attention.  All of this shining world, flame throwing and night cool whispers is bound to give way to the stark hush of winter, soon enough.  If I keep my eyes and heart wide open every moment between now and then, surely I’ll coast on these colors and textures all the way to spring.

And you.  How does your heart bloom?  Bloomin’ hearts, each one of you…

xx
Plume