An absence of plums

Last night, as we were sitting on the patio enjoying a glass of wine, we were suddenly inundated with fruit flies and it got me thinking about about our poor old plum tree which is, aside from its leaves, naked. It is a great tree in many respects--one that hangs over the patio like an overgrown yet somehow graceful umbrella. The fruit it produces is amazingly sweet with a perfect shot of tartness. When Ella was a baby and teething, Paul kept her supplied with plum sauce ice cubes and made lots of plum jam. But this year? Not one plum due to the weirdly warm spring and following frost. I dug through my photos this morning and found this one from last fall:

The fruit was so heavy it caused one third of the tree to split off and it crashed to the ground destroying a good section of our perennial bed. There were so many fruit flies around the patio we could hardly stand to be out there. I pushed plums off the patio with a snow shovel and the plums just kept coming down day after day. The fruit flies multiplied into clouds and started riding into the house on our arms and legs and in our hair.

At that time, we were also experiencing a banner tomato crop--coveted Green Zebras, Cherokees, Sun Sugars, Black Pearls, you name it we probably had it. We had to move all the tomatoes we were picking  outside to the patio table because our kitchen was becoming crazy with fruit flies. But then, another dilemma. Who knew our shepherds would love tomatoes so much?