The Faux Flower

  While out walking PJ for his last run of the day, I noticed what looked like a lovely flower on the ground.  Hmm?  This was not some easily recognizable blossom.  I thought that I was, at least, basically familiar with all of the blooms around the hillside, yet, here was one that I did not know!  This called for a bit of closer observation.  Not wanting to "uproot" some ground cover bloom, I knelt near the object.  It was then that I realized the old woman's eyesight was far worse that she knew! What my eyes saw as a bloom was nothing more than the stem cap from a wild persimmon.  I should have realized this from the get-go since I have seen these a thousand times before. In my defense, however, none of the previous stem caps have ever had the rich colors of this one.  Instead of being either the bright green of an unripe fruit or the dried brown of a luscious ripe persimmon, this was tri-colored.  The center was a rusty red, surrounded by a autumn gold and then edged with cool blue.  The "petals" were highlighted with a deep brown!  It sure resembled a flower!

  Once I realized that what my unknown bloom was, I started searching the branches for the first few ripe persimmons.  None were ready, yet. This is understandable since we need a frost to fully sweeten the fruits to their tasty deliciousness!  Had I snacked on one today, my mouth would have puckered and I would have instantly regretted my hastiness. 

  The "flower" was obviously discarded by a raccoon that had raided the tree last night.  For some odd reason, the tartness and astringency of the unripe persimmons does not seem to effect the critters as much as it does humans.  We lean towards taste over nutrition.  The raccoon knew that the persimmons would provide a nutritious meal.  I just hope he grows tired of eating persimmons before he totally clears my tree! I would love to have a few as a snack come this winter.  In the meantime, I will enjoy the raccoon's castoff "flowers" and maybe sip a cup of persimmon leaf tea while I wait for a frost!

Early Evening Raid

  Way down near the marsh edge sits a small persimmon tree.  This is not one of the cultivated trees that makes the nice, plump fruit but rather a wild one that has tiny, marble-sized fruit.  This is fine by me as I prefer the tiny pleasantly-sweet persimmons over the large, mushy, almost sickening-sweet things.  In fact, I like these things so much that I encouraged Son to leave the many seedlings that have sprouted where seeds have dropped.  I know we will have to thin the little saplings at some point but for now they grow.  I do so enjoy the first ripe persimmon and cannot wait until a night's frost changes the tart fruit into sugary, yet tangy, pieces of yumminess!

  There are also a few of the denizens of the Bayou that prefer my persimmons over their normal meals.  Possums and coons seek out the tree and start swiping the fruits even before they turn orange.  Today when I sent Ms. Ez down the hill to do her business, she got side-tracked at the persimmon tree.  That old dog stood staring up into the branches and that could only mean one thing.  She spied some culprit eating my fruit!  I made my way down to see what the old dog treed. Sure enough, a small raccoon was perched up in the branches.  Under the tree were the remains of a dozen or so unripe persimmons.  How is this little guy eating green persimmons?  Those things will pucker up your mouth until it feels as if it is being turned inside out! He must have been really hungry to tackle this meal!

  I watched the raccoon for a bit as he watched us.  It was sort of a standoff to see who would cede to the other.  Ms. Ez started jumping up and down trying to reach the little fellow but he was a bit too high for her.  As long as he stayed still, he would be safe from the old dog. He did and he was. She and I headed back to the Little Bayou House and left him in peace. By morning, dozens of half-eaten persimmons will litter the ground beneath the tree.  He will drop most as he searches for that one elusive sweet one.  Good luck, Little Fellow. I don't think you will be finding any sweetness in the tree tonight!

Green Anoles and Green Persimmons!

I was reading the other day how it is getting hard to find Green Anoles in Florida due to the invasion of Brown Anoles . The Brown Anole is a similar species not to be confused with the brown stage of the Green Anole..boy is that ever confusing! It seems that the Brown is much more competitive and prolific than the Green thus causing territorial feuds. The Green Anole is becoming scarce and some residents in Florida are a bit worried. I am not sure they are scarce..I think maybe they have all moved to my yard. For some reason, I have more lizards than I can shake a stick at on any given day. They seem to be everywhere! The Green Anole is what we grew up knowing as an ordinary green lizard..no fancy name..just lizard. They were great playthings for my brothers, bringing peals of laughter as they would chase my sister through the yard with the lizard in tow. She was and still is..uh..mildly afraid of them or at least has a very strong dislike of these fine creatures. Fair warning, Dear Sister, my yard is a crawling mass of lizards! This summer there seem to be so many tiny lizards with more hatching constantly. I like to think it is simply because they prefer to live in my gardens but I am sure it is more likely that with the gardens there are bugs. Since I do not use any chemical pesticides, I depend on the natural order of things to eliminate unwanted critters. So far, this seems to be working out pretty well. The lizards, birds, garden spiders and dragonflies are eating multitudes of bugs that flock to my plants so I am able to maintain a balance by only using natural herbs for insecticides when needed. As it is, the Green Anoles can have free roam of all the gardens with fear of harm from me.

Outside of the garden and down on the Bayou edge, there is a wild Persimmon tree. Yesterday, I noticed the little green orbs are starting to turn slightly yellow. In a couple of months, they should be dark orange and ripe enough to pick. There is a sort of folk rule that you should not eat these small persimmons before the first frost of the year and this far south that is probably not just a myth. It has nothing to do with the frost making them edible, it just ripens them a bit more. Ripe persimmons are really a delight. I am not overly fond of the large cultivated persimmons but these tiny (two inches in diameter) persimmons are delectable! When ripe and rather squishy, they are unbelievably sweet. Yes, there are several quite large seeds in each one that you need to spit out, but there is just something satisfying about being able to eat these bite sized fruit. It might just be the idea that I have gotten my fair share before the birds and 'possums devoured the entire tree's crop! You can bet I will be watching for these little golden globs of goodness to shrivel a bit to indicate they are ripe. Yum! One word of caution though..if you have never eaten a wild persimmon (or any persimmon for that matter) make sure it is squishy ripe. Biting into a

green (unripe) one is an experience you will never forget! The astringent properties of it will

turn your mouth "inside out"!!! The pucker power of a green persimmon beats anything I have ever known! These pictures are actually from last year. We had so much rain today that it was hard to venture all the way to the Bayou's edge to get a shot of the persimmon tree. Here though, you can see what I mean about the fruit being a bit squishy. The darker orange ones are actually rather soft and are ready to eat! The ones on the tree now are still much greener than these so I will have to wait a bit.