Persimmon Panic

The persimmons are falling!  It's not like having the sky come down, but I was totally disheartened. The total crop of my favorite fruit was under 40 last year, and that was before the squirrels nipped them off, chewed a little hole in the skin and hid them all over the yard.  The actual net was closer to 10--from a tree that typically yields 300 or more each year.

Twisted, pixy magic of the persimmon calyx from the tree
that wisely thins itself

There were tiny wax-yellow blossoms all over the tree a couple of months ago.  Hope surged high that things were back on track. What I had forgotten was that the tree does an automatic thinning just before the fruits begin to grow.  All over the ground were dozens and dozens of spent calixes from the tree.  My panicked vision made it hard to see what was left to mature on this grand tree.

Baby persimmon about 5/8" across

Collecting my wits along with the Things I get to do today revealed that there is, indeed, a good crop of green, baby persimmons that will grow into brilliant orange pumpkin-shaped fruits for Thanksgiving and Christmas.