Persimmoning
Tuesday November 11th 2014, 8:57 pm
Filed under: Food,Friends,Garden,Life,Lupus,Wildlife

First, a side note to Peter and Terry if you should read this: my father would like to offer you written memories of Marcelline, if only he knew where to send them. If you leave a short hey I’m here in the comments section, your email address will come to me and I will pass it along but it will not show on this site. Thank you so much.

Meantime, hawk sightings nearly every day of late and quite the territorial displays. Glorious. The male flew in next to the window this afternoon and–well, he was saying something right at me, but you’d have to ask him. He seemed to wait for an answer but all I could offer was that I loved having him there.

The crows are staying well clear.

Speaking of which. There are neighbors with a tall old persimmon tree that bears heavily this time of year.

The last year or two, whoever had been helping them harvest didn’t and once the fruit was overripe and grossly sweet, every crow and raven in miles was going at it for several weeks, the whole tree one loud heaving mass of flapping black wings, and when that source was spent they went looking for more to claim in the near vicinity–and they drove out my Cooper’s hawks for a goodly while. Hunting doves is enough work without being constantly mobbed and stolen from.

So I confessed to the one neighbor that I’d had an ulterior motive in asking his wife if they needed help with the picking: I love Hachiya persimmons, and I wanted to thwart those corvids.

Boy were they with me on that one.

And so it was that near dusk today, with their strong encouragement (Please! All you want! Take it! Give lots to your friends!) I went in their back yard and picked a big bag’s worth and then walked from house to house, offering it out.

One took the whole bag. Cool, that works.  I started over.

I was amazed at how tiring picking and carrying the stuff around could be.

They will ripen (they’re almost there), I will puree, and I shall have frozen persimmon for whenever I need a fix out of season. As long as I don’t inflict them on my husband, we’re good.


2 Comments so far
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I got some in my Bountiful Basket once–didn’t know what to do with them. Found a recipe for persimmon pudding–turned out to be sweet flour. ICK. What do you do with them?

Comment by Sherry in Idaho 11.12.14 @ 10:21 am

For a short time my parents lived near my Dad’s sister around Fresno. She had persimmons and pomegranates. Dad went over to help her harvest and process them. They had a great time, remembering growing up and talking about family. Dad really missed that when she moved away. I honestly don’t remember him bringing much of it home, other than a few persimmons.

Comment by Mary 11.12.14 @ 11:19 am



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