a strange time of year for pawpaws

Pawpaws are ripe in September.

Mack appreciated food in a way I have only experienced with other people who have grown and preserved and eaten their own food. He wouldn't mow food down as I experienced on one farm. He was aware of it, appreciative of it. He had pawpaw trees and a persimmon tree and wine berries and he'd always point it out and share it with you. One time I asked him if the passion fruits that grew in his hay fields were edible and he said he thought they were just insipid. He'd probably tried them as a kid. He helped me gather locust blossoms.

And I always talked about wanting to get some pawpaws started here. We talked about digging up a couple of saplings but we never did, and his pawpaws never seemed to bear all that well either so I never had a bunch of seeds or anything. Plus, frankly, I was probably busy riding horses instead of growing things. 

Ahhh but last September I hit my farm friend Laura up because her pawpaws bear! And I gathered a whole bunch! And I made pawpaw ice cream among other things, and in fact, I need to do that again as we are milking now and I can get that out of the freezer. Anyhooo, I saved a lot of seeds, and I threw some fruits that were too far gone to preserve in places in the woods that might be hospitable to pawpaw trees.

Keep in mind, in 30+ years on this farm, we've never seen a pawpaw here. Keep in mind that not a seed has sprouted yet this year. But last September, after I'd gotten the pawpaws, we were looking around at the trees growing near the edge of the orchard area and said, "Hey, that looks a little like a pawpaw tree. What do you think?"

And this year we kept an eye on it.

Lo and behold, it's a flipping pawpaw tree BLOOMING. 'Themboysonline' say a seedling pawpaw might take 10 years before it blooms so this thing didn't just show up this year. Several smaller trees around this one look to be pawpaws too. Pawpaws will grow from their roots (they like to be in "clonal" patches in the understory) so this is likely.

Here's hoping there's another pawpaw tree blooming somewhere near to share pollen. I'm still having fun with my seeds in toilet paper rolls experiment. My sweet potatoes are beginning to produce slips. I've almost got the goat hide fleshed. The orchard and blueberries got formally mulched today.

But this is part of what I really want to say here: You get what you pay attention to. I don't mean that in a strict sense, although a shift in perspective can hugely shift perception. Lawd knows I've been working on that with myself a bunch recently. I mean that what you need often appears. What you ask for from the universe often comes. Every time I become aware of a new plant, I can see it everywhere! Where I would swear it wasn't before. Maybe the universe brought it; maybe it was a shift in perspective. The result is the same. Peace. Abundance. Grounding.

Shift is this year's word by the way.