Pawpaw Time
Lead Summary
By
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By CHRISTINE TAILER
We had been checking the pawpaw fruit on each walk, gently squeezing their smooth greenness. Then we began to notice brown specs on their smooth surfaces. A few days later, as we squeezed, the flesh gave way, ever so slightly, under the pressure from our fingers. We picked a particularly large, low one. A small bit of skin tore off where it broke from the branch. I held the fruit up to my nose, breathing in that unique pawpaw sweetness.
Greg peeled the skin off with his pocket knife as I stood by his side. The familiar scent surrounded us. He handed me a sliver of the orange yellow fruit on his knife blade. It was perfectly ripe and seemed to almost melt in my mouth, the sweet banana taste lingering.
There was no time to waste. We had to race the raccoons and possum to the harvest. Many of the trees were thin and the fruit no more than fifteen feet off the ground. If we could not reach the higher fruit, one of us would gently bend the thin tree while the other reached for the fruit.
Other trees were too thick to bend, but were still thin enough to shake. The fruit fell to the leaf covered ground in solid thuds, but still, I did not want to bruise the fruit or damage the trees, so we had to think of another plan. No worry. I knew just what to do.
It was time to do some wild edible backhoe harvesting. Perhaps we could have gotten out the tool we have used in years past, an extendable light bulb unscrewing devise, that Greg slightly re-engineered to harvest pawpaw, but the raising the long pole up to the fruit would not have been half as much fun as riding the backhoe bucket.
Greg pulled the backhoe out of the pole barn. I climbed into the bucket and sat securely on the back rounded rim, my feet planted firmly in the bucket's bottom, my five gallon harvesting pail by my side. We were off.
I felt as though I was a very special patron on my own private amusement park ride. Greg drove carefully and I rode proudly, down the creek road to the pawpaw patch. Once solidly parked, he followed my signals, raising and lowering the bucket, so I could pick the perfect fruit, unblemished and without a single bruise.
My pail was soon filled to the brim. Some of the fruit, farther back from the road and deeper in the in the woods, were not quite ripe. They were more difficult to reach with the backhoe and rather that take our trusty machine off of the road and into the pawpaw patch, we decided to leave those fruit for the creek creatures.
On our walk, I had noticed cleaned pawpaw seeds scattered across the road, remnants of a creek wildlife dinner. I was certain that the five-gallon bucket held more than enough pawpaw for my immediate use.
Back at the cabin, I lay all of my treasure out on the table. Its entire surface was filled, edge to edge. I felt truly wealthy, like King Midas, counting his gold coins, as I ran my fingers across the smooth fruit.
I fell asleep in the loft that evening, smelling their green sweetness, waiting for tomorrow's fruit snack, or to be stirred into that trusty pawpaw bread recipe, or maybe even fashioned into something I had just discovered, pawpaw wine.
Christine Tailer is a former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.[[In-content Ad]]
We had been checking the pawpaw fruit on each walk, gently squeezing their smooth greenness. Then we began to notice brown specs on their smooth surfaces. A few days later, as we squeezed, the flesh gave way, ever so slightly, under the pressure from our fingers. We picked a particularly large, low one. A small bit of skin tore off where it broke from the branch. I held the fruit up to my nose, breathing in that unique pawpaw sweetness.
Greg peeled the skin off with his pocket knife as I stood by his side. The familiar scent surrounded us. He handed me a sliver of the orange yellow fruit on his knife blade. It was perfectly ripe and seemed to almost melt in my mouth, the sweet banana taste lingering.
There was no time to waste. We had to race the raccoons and possum to the harvest. Many of the trees were thin and the fruit no more than fifteen feet off the ground. If we could not reach the higher fruit, one of us would gently bend the thin tree while the other reached for the fruit.
Other trees were too thick to bend, but were still thin enough to shake. The fruit fell to the leaf covered ground in solid thuds, but still, I did not want to bruise the fruit or damage the trees, so we had to think of another plan. No worry. I knew just what to do.
It was time to do some wild edible backhoe harvesting. Perhaps we could have gotten out the tool we have used in years past, an extendable light bulb unscrewing devise, that Greg slightly re-engineered to harvest pawpaw, but the raising the long pole up to the fruit would not have been half as much fun as riding the backhoe bucket.
Greg pulled the backhoe out of the pole barn. I climbed into the bucket and sat securely on the back rounded rim, my feet planted firmly in the bucket's bottom, my five gallon harvesting pail by my side. We were off.
I felt as though I was a very special patron on my own private amusement park ride. Greg drove carefully and I rode proudly, down the creek road to the pawpaw patch. Once solidly parked, he followed my signals, raising and lowering the bucket, so I could pick the perfect fruit, unblemished and without a single bruise.
My pail was soon filled to the brim. Some of the fruit, farther back from the road and deeper in the in the woods, were not quite ripe. They were more difficult to reach with the backhoe and rather that take our trusty machine off of the road and into the pawpaw patch, we decided to leave those fruit for the creek creatures.
On our walk, I had noticed cleaned pawpaw seeds scattered across the road, remnants of a creek wildlife dinner. I was certain that the five-gallon bucket held more than enough pawpaw for my immediate use.
Back at the cabin, I lay all of my treasure out on the table. Its entire surface was filled, edge to edge. I felt truly wealthy, like King Midas, counting his gold coins, as I ran my fingers across the smooth fruit.
I fell asleep in the loft that evening, smelling their green sweetness, waiting for tomorrow's fruit snack, or to be stirred into that trusty pawpaw bread recipe, or maybe even fashioned into something I had just discovered, pawpaw wine.
Christine Tailer is a former city dweller who moved several years ago, with her husband, Greg, to an off-grid farm in south-central Ohio. Visit them on the web at straightcreekvalleyfarm.com.[[In-content Ad]]