Family Tradition - HomeMade Freezer Plum Jam

Nifty

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This has been a family tradition since 1973ish?

When I was a kid I was doing this exact same thing with my family using plumbs from the same tree & using the same equipment, including the custom sharpened pit removing tools my dad made!

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The pitters aren't anything super fancy, but they sure work fast & great! They are basically various sizes of pipe ground down on the outer edges to be made sharp. This slide right through the middle of the fruit, and if they get plugged we use a dowel to just pop out all the pits.

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My dad also took a piece of angle-iron and ground one side down to a super sharp crescent... like a mounted concave knife. We'd used that to quickly slice open apricots and pull out the seeds. It was brilliant and worked perfectly. I unfortunately can't find it to take a picture

... and here's our oldest back in 2006:

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digitS'

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Traditions so often involve food. Home and hearth. Then, everything and everybody move to the table, youngest to oldest are participants there.

Youngsters, so often, insist on traditions. "We always did it this way." Always is such a short time in a child's life! These events are what they remember and their seriousness about them is endearing. Makes the oldsters feel a greater sense of belonging, too :).

Steve
 

sumi

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What a wonderful tradition! Lots of family fun and some lovely looking jam to boot! Maybe (quite) a few years down the line your beautiful daughters will be making jam from the same tree with their children...
 

ninnymary

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Sweet family Nifty! It's beautiful when we have traditions and they get passed down. It gives you such a sense of connection. One question, who gets to clean that mess? ;)

Mary
 

Carol Dee

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@Nifty I love it! The jam looks delicious and what a handsome family. Those girls are real beauties. That is a lot of work made FUN. And wonderful memories to boot. I agree with @baymule Love in every jar. And like @ninnymary Who does the clean up?
 

Nifty

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Thanks for all the great comments everyone! :hugs

We don't have very many traditions in our family, so I think that fact makes this one even more special.

Yup, it sure is a sticky mess and process! We usually have my brother's family helping out, but they couldn't make it in time from Arizona. We did a relatively small batch since there wasn't a ton of fruit (tree's getting old, drought, lack of proper pruning, etc.) and we didn't have a ton of help. We did have my mom here to help, so that made things a lot easier. She and my wife were great at cleaning up... not my best skill! ;)
 

Carol Dee

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Thanks for all the great comments everyone! :hugs

We don't have very many traditions in our family, so I think that fact makes this one even more special.

Yup, it sure is a sticky mess and process! We usually have my brother's family helping out, but they couldn't make it in time from Arizona. We did a relatively small batch since there wasn't a ton of fruit (tree's getting old, drought, lack of proper pruning, etc.) and we didn't have a ton of help. We did have my mom here to help, so that made things a lot easier. She and my wife were great at cleaning up... not my best skill! ;)
Yep, I reckoned the Women folk would get to do clean up! :hide LOL
 

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