First Pawpaws of the Year!

Last year the first pawpaw fell on September 1st. But this year we kept waiting and waiting. Then on Tuesday, Sept 5th, we were backing out of the driveway to go pick some neighbors' grapes and NJ gasped in kind of a loud way. I worried she had hit someone's pet...

...but she jumped out of the car and pointed to three (count the fingers, THREE) pawpaws that had fallen from the Shenandoah cultivar.

Here I am being melodramatic--okay, deadly serious--as I smelled the aroma of the first three pawpaws of the year. (I'm very humbled to brag that if you notice some extra flush in my cheeks, it's because I had run 15 miles that morning in prep for a marathon that's coming up in October.)

As far as S was concerned, there was too much melodrama in all this. She said, "Ugh, go ahead and put on your black hat and fake mustachio and tie me to the train tracks already!" I took her point, and we took this more festive pic.

The Shenandoah has so many pawpaws this year that the branches are spreading every which way.

We went and picked the grapes (green concord I think) and made a still life composition titled Pawpaws with Green Grapes and Daily Pill Box (Containing Calcium Supplements and Multivitamins).

Then I got down to business.

At one point in my life someone showed me a video about manners that said you should never lick a knife--never, never ever. Never. But..I'm finding it harder to be a gentleman every day.

Twist!

And there it was--the first pawpaw of the year!