Canning Day

Yesterday, I decided to relieve our cherry-plum trees of some of their burden. The branches were almost touching the ground, so heavily laden were they with fruit. I picked about a third of what I could reach from just one tree. The picture below is about half of what I picked.

There's enough there for about 8 small jars of preserves. I know, because I already cooked the other half and they are cooling on my counter, now:

We've never really figured out what these fruits are. They're about the size of cherries, but they definitely look like plums, inside and out. It's not a cherry pit, either - nope, it's a plum. But little ones. So we just call them cherry-plums and let it go at that.

This was my first experience using pectin. I have an extra jar that I didn't have space to boil, so when it cools, I'll have a chance to check out my attempt. I do have to say though, that the jam tastes good!