Stereotypical Pawpaw Blossom Post

Just checking in, wanted to show you the pawpaw blossoms, which are already finish and on to fruiting time. If you've there's an ant in the final pic.

First Fruits of the Susquehanna Pawpaw Tree

Back in May 2016 we planted two new pawpaws: the mango and Susquehanna cultivars. Now, three years later, the mango hasn't had any flower buds, but the Susquehanna had its first buds this spring. And then it set some fruit. As of now, there are are seven pawpaw fruits on this little pawpaw tree. I doubt the tree will be able to sustain all of these, and it's typical that the trees drop the fruit they can't sustain. So it will be interesting to see if this little tree can keep any of the fruit. 

If the Susquehanna can bring just one fruit to fruition, it will have beaten the KSU-Atwood and Shenandoah, which took 4 years to bear fruit. And the Wells took five years. So this would be great. They say the Susquehanna gives some very heavy fruit. Over a pound, which (I hyperbolize) is heavier than the little tree itself!

Winter to Spring, Cactus to Pawpaw

Over the winter we went to Robert Smithson's earth- and water-work Spiral Jetty a couple times. It's up on the north part of the Great Salt Lake. After we got back from one of the trips, I made a linocut based on the brine shrimp and red algae and salt crystals near the Spiral Jetty.  If you've never heard of this piece of artwork that is far from the pawpaw's range, you should read up on it.

That was winter. Then spring came along and it was time to get this big cactus out of our house, so we needed to find a big landscaping dolly. Tougher than it sounds, for us anyway.

Last year we kept the cactus under the arches in front of our house, but that was because it was getting used to not being a strictly indoor cactus anymore. This year, we want it to take the full brunt of the sun. No more shade and shadows, no matter how aesthetic that may be.

So I used the dolly to move it out into the yard to be a good neighbor to the Wells cultivar.

Strange Beast, and Tanager in a Pawpaw Tree

The other day at a second hand store we found this strange beast. Who makes a bear (complete with killed fish at its feet) out of a cowrie shell and a clam shell? I sure would like to know who, since it's some creative thinking.

Also the other day NJ and I were standing out by the car port and talking before I was going in to work, and then a western tanager flew up and landed in the Shenandoah. I couldn't get any picks before it flew away, so I was lucky that a few days later it landed in the same tree and stuck around for long enough.

If you want to see one of the few western tanagers to have ever landed in a pawpaw tree, you should click on this pic.

But if you just want to see what a male western tanager looks like, here's a pic I lifted from wikipedia.

11 pawpaws from 1 flower!

Out in the pawpaw orchard on the Shenandoah we had one flower
that must've been very very well pollinated.

I say that because...

...this one flower has given rise to 11 pawpaws!

That's the most I've ever seen from one flower.

I hope to give you updates on the further life and progress of these 11 pawpaws. Hoping that the tree can handle nourishing them all, I hope to give you updates on how each one of these pawpaws tastes in September.