Persimmons

One of the tasks on my to-do list this weekend is to get the season's persimmons into the freezer. From there, they'll be available for our morning smoothies and for pies and other fruit desserts.

The process goes something like this:

 There are still quite a few persimmons on the tree, but what looks like a solid, intact fruit has often been "sampled" by the birds, and is really a hollow shell - they've hoovered the soft fruit right out from inside the skin. I will probably let them have the rest - it was a generous crop, and prepping the fruit for the freezer is slow and tedious. Plus, the temps have been well below freezing at night, and there aren't that many food sources left for the non-acorn-eating birds. (The huge population of woodpeckers is well stocked for the winter, because the most common native tree in this area is oaks, both the deciduous and the evergreen types.)