I was shamed into it

I was on a Quixotic Quest to find and deliver as many examples of local quince fruit to a recent transplant from the west-coast.

Every individual is blessed with unique talents. One of mine is to be able to identify plants while driving past them at fifty-five miles per hour. I have excellent peripheral vision, a gift from many years of parenting. For somebody like me, identifying a quince bush is not that hard.

Noticing that it was a good year for quince (not every year is) I reached out to this very sweet transplant via her husband. Certain protocols must be followed.

She responded "Yes! I want some quince fruit."

I ended up delivering fruit from five different bushes (two of which may have been repeats). 

One of my stops was a bit sad. The owner of the quince tree had very recently lost her husband. She looked to be eighty...a very spry eighty, but still.

She was impressed that I knew what a quince was, much less that I recognized it in her yard. She told me several times that she wasn't going to do anything with the fruit on her tree this year. She also told me that it would be a huge favor to her if somebody picked ALL of the fruit from the tree as she would otherwise have to pick it off the ground and dispose of it.

In the course of our conversation, she mentioned that quince and quince/pear jelly is the bees-knees for sore throats and for throats that are raw from coughing.

I have absolutely no doubt that she was overwhelmed due to recent events.

After dropping off the examples from the various trees, I sent the recipient of the quince an email detailing the origins of the fruit. I also included a few details about the widow's quince.

I quickly received a reply from the west-coast refugee. She and her faithful wingman "L" (visualize Calvin and Hobbes) were going to help the widow out. They were going to swoop down upon her prolific quince bush and render the ungrateful fruit into enough quince jam to banish sore throats from the county for the next three years.

Well, drat and daggity-nabbit

I am watching a toddler who might get a sore throat. My supply of quince was freshly depleted and it is late in the season.

What I still have that is fair fodder for jam are Steuben grapes. Tart, tannic, deeply pigmented.

And as quick as two jerks of a pig's-tail, I had seven pints in the canner.

Eight pounds of fruit

The ladle

A native Sour-gum (Tupelo) tree. They are not super common around here but you can find them if you look.