Japanese Plum Harvest

Considering we bought our Japanese plum (Methley) tree only three years ago, it provided a good harvest this year.  Yesterday, I noticed the plums started disappearing (squirrels!), and falling (squirrels?) to the ground, so I picked most of them, leaving only a half dozen which were not fully ripe (which were already gone today - squirrels!).  Here is my harvest :

As the description promised, the plums have "dark red juicy flesh" with "mild and sweet flavour" and it is an "attractive and vigorous tree".  It is a truly beautiful tree, and I think I've done a reasonable job of pruning it so far, so it is growing in nicely.

Since the forecast yesterday was for rain, we had postponed our big BBQ for the following week, and then it didn't end up raining at all, so I spent a few good solid hours in the garden.  One of my projects was to fight through a solid mat of ornamental grass, which is growing all around my red Japanese maple, so that I can get to a nasty blackberry vine which is growing up from under the tree, and pushing through it for the last few years.  After more than an hour of chopping through the grass, I had cleared a path which is close to the blackberry, but removing it, and the grass directly under the tree, will be a job for another day.  The path I cleared was more than one wheelbarrow's worth :