Bzzzzz...

It’s been a hive of activity here at Wild Plum Cottage during the past few weeks. We’ve been painting, watching the garden grow (although the only thing I’ve harvested so far is six green beans – yeah, six), and working on the front yard.

We realized, after three back-breaking weekends, that there’s no way we can re-landscape the front yard by ourselves. So we hired someone to do it for us. What luxury. We’ve had a crew of three guys tearing out lawns, shrubbery, and small trees for two days. Tomorrow they’ll start working on terracing and laying bricks. After that they’ll lay out the drip system. Then we’ll pay them and do the planting ourselves. It’s going to be beautiful. There’ll be before, during, and after pictures when we’re done.

In the midst of all this busy-ness I’ve been canning like a fiend. The chocolate cherry wine sauce turned out amazingly delicious, but I’m not sure it’s safe to can. I put three jars through the water bath, admired them for about a day, got the willies, popped the seals, and refrigerated them. Botulism is a bad thing, and I don’t know enough about acidity to trust my own made-up canning recipe. But if I find out it’s a canning-safe recipe I’ll be slamming it into jars as fast as possible, because, honestly, it’s the best damn thing I’ve ever cooked. (And you, Miss Amber, will be first on my list of recipients.)