plum pickin'

At my mother's house, there's a great deal of trees. I mean, she lives in the country for pete's sakes. 

Every spring and summer she gets the enormous pool ready, makes her yard look immaculate,plants a garden, and makes jam and cans her vegetables for the rest of the year. This is on top of the daily chores of homeschooling two kids, feeding a household of 100 (slight exaggeration there...), tending to 100 animals (that's not an exaggeration) and still goes to her day job in the wee-hours of the morning. 

She's freaking Wonder Woman, indeed. 

When we came over, they showed Andrew how to pick plums from the tree. 

Even had a ladder all set up for those high up ones. They were so good!

So, if there's a ladder, a boy will climb it, right? That's the rule.

So Andrew did. And he got a bucket to stash his plums in. And he picked and picked.

For my photography nerds, I encountered a serious problem. Shooting pictures under trees is hard to do. Your subjects are in the shade and you get underexposed pictures. But I was also getting a background that was overexposed (the sky) and it made it really hard to edit these pictures :( 

So you either end up with a dark subject or a blown out sky...any advice?!

talk about screwing up a picture fast...

He didn't mind me snapping pictures of him like he would normally. He was so fascinated by picking the fruit and tossing them in the bucket. He said many times, "I LIKE PICKING PLUMS!"

He's a hard-working boy...just like his Moomie.

Jonah also tried helping. Then they started fighting over the ladder. So daddy had to hoist him up. 

His arms got tired.

After he gathered enough plums, he went inside and showed EVERYBODY what he had just done. 

And of course, Moomie is happy because it's one less step in her canning/jarring duties.