Now THAT is fresh-picked!

   I guess I have never really thought about how fruit manages to stay so "fresh-looking" while hanging on a tree in all sorts of weather.  If you ever really do ponder it, the phenomenon might seem a bit strange but, once you understand it, the fruit trees are on to something fantastic.  They have a sort of "anti-aging" thing going on with the fruit!  All of this pondering came about because I picked a few plums that had started to ripen.  Squirrels take great joy in snacking on every plum, peach or pear on the trees before I get any so...I pick early to beat them!  After picking the plums, I immediately plopped them in the dishpan full of water to rinse away any dust or other things that I may not want to ingest.  My goodness!  The plums appeared to be "glass-coated"!  Well, that started the wheels in the brain a-turning and I had to investigate this magical happening!  Son is always after me to keep learning new things so this was to be my lesson for the time being.

  A bit of research led to the discovery that fruit, such as plums, have a natural wax on their surface.  Like all living things, fruits have multilayered skin but theirs have a delightful secret. We tend to think of the thick outer peel as a skin but that is only part of it.  Fruit and leaves, like us, lose a lot of water through their skin but they have a specialized layer that produces a wax that helps to slow that moisture loss dramatically. It keeps the fruit, leaves, stalks healthy and robust. (This wax is not to be confused with the gunk that is sprayed on fruit and veggies from the grocery store...that is garbage, to my way of thinking.)  The natural wax slowly disappears once the fruit is picked or dropped from the tree.  I tested this by dropping some plums in the same temperature water...they did not appear to be encased in a bubble.  The difference?  Those plums were picked and placed in a bowl for two days before the experiment.  The wax had disintegrated to allow the plum to age.  This fantastic coating is called epicuticular wax and is present on all parts of (land) plants.  (I guess water plants don't really have to fret over becoming dehydrated!)  So, the third time I plopped fruit in the water, I did a mix of day old plums, fresh plums and a handful of fresh blueberries.  Yep, the fresh-picked ones had that wax coating whereas the day old plum (lower left in the photo) seemed bland in comparison.  Amazing!

  Now!  If you are ever purchasing "fresh-picked" fruit and the seller is adamant that the fruit was "picked the same day".  Ask if you can drop one in some water!  If it is truly fresh, it will most likely appear encapsulated in an air pocket.  The wax will still be on the fruit and not allow the water to cling to the skin.  Something to think about, huh?  Ok, so enough of my rambling.  I just found it interesting and decided to give my shortened, (feeble) explanation of the lengthy study that took me quite a while to read and decipher.  (I am beginning to think age is doing strange things to my brain to make me ponder about air bubbles on fruit.)  Oh...and the plums?  They became the tastiest jam!  The squirrels did not get them all this year.

All Choked Up...

   You can catch some of the oddest critters when throwing the net from the pier.  In fact, I never know exactly what might be in the catch.  Everything from the tiniest pipefish to a monster of a snapping turtle have been hauled to the pier.  Pipefish...I can handle.  Snapping turtles...I cannot.  Those critters tear up the entire net and are a pain to set free.  Not something I relish.  

  For the past week or so, some schools of shrimp have been making their way through the Bay and that calls for the locals to head down to their piers with the nets.  We never catch huge amounts but we are grateful for any we do.  During those throws we find our odd critters.  Yesterday's oddity (somewhat) is known as a hogchoker.  Mark caught several and I finally convinced him to get a photograph for me as my camera was safe inside the house.  The hogchoker is native here.  It is perhaps the flattest fish in these parts even more than the flounder.  A hogchoker only gets about 5 inches in length and is quite camouflaged in color.  This coloring allows it to blend well with the muddy bottoms where it hides.  Like all other flat fish, when it is born it has an eye on either side of its body but the "bottom" eye migrates to the top of the fish before it is a month old or about 1/2 inch in length.  Pretty cool!

  When my kids were little, they loved playing with the tiny hogchokers.  While I was throwing the net, a bucket of water and a few hogchokers kept the kiddos entertained.  After they played with the "suckerfish" (their name) for a while, they knew to return them to the same place where we caught them.  Odd critters make wonderful babysitters and provide plenty of learning experiences.  Teach 'em young, folks.  Teach 'em young!