Pond, plums, homemade frozen yogurt

One of the other jobs Partner managed on our week off: he drained the pond and pulled out the liner. We now have a deep hole where the fish used to swim. I'm committed to filling it with garden trimmings--hopefully it'll be full by next spring, and I can put some dirt down on top of it, and maybe grass or decking. As shown in the photo, the hole is about three feet deep, and at least six feet across--that's a lot of filling.

I submitted my last two assignments for the year, and now only have two exams to look forward to. Huge weight off my mind, though one of the exams I'm quite nervous about (the math). Still, all I need is a pass.

Partner and I were lucky enough to have a neighbor over to babysit while we went to a wedding last week. Only the second time we've been out since Franklin's birth, it felt nice to have some grown up time together. I wore a new dress and even danced a few dances. We came home early, and the neighbor said she would be happy to come over again.

That was the neighbor with the plum tree. I ended up making about ten jars of plum jam--not my favorite but it's not bad. We'll eat it. I also made four big jars of whole plums in syrup; I haven't tried them yet. And to finish off the last of those pesky plums I made a crumble. I have a feeling if I go visit my neighbor again she'll offload some more onto me. But then again, she's also promised me apples, which should be just about ripe now...

To go with the plum crumble I also made some frozen yogurt. I read about a method which involves a large outer ziplock bag filled with salt and ice, and a small inner ziplock bag filled with flavored yogurt. After tumbling the bags around till the ice melted (I wore gloves), the yogurt was partially frozen but not quite ready, so I popped the small bag into the freezer to finish, and gave it a squeeze every half hour to break up the big ice crystals. It took half an hour of tumbling and an hour of freezing to be perfect. Oh, and this was yogurt I made myself, too.