Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024 - 10

Of Persimmons and Yellow Jackets
HAND-TO-STINGER COMBAT
How sumptuous bread justifies an arduous foray.
TEXT AND PHOTO BY BRUCE INGRAM | PHOTO STYLING BY JANETTE SPENCER
T
he foraging
foray began
innocently enough. Traditionally
every
autumn,
Elaine, our grandsons Sam
and Eli and I drive to a farm in Botetourt
County, Virginia, to pick persimmons.
Forgive me if I'm not any more
specific than that, but the wild, native
persimmon produces the most sublime
fall fruit that these highlands have to
offer. And Elaine turns those sweet, orange
golf-ball sized globes into the most
heavenly homemade bread imaginable.
One of the keys to my wife's bread
is mixing in the nutmeat from wild
black walnuts that the boys and I
earlier gather from our woodlot and
along our rural road. Seeing,
smelling and slicing that dark
orange, nutty bread hot from
the oven is one of the joys of
rural mountain life.
On our most recent visit
to the tree, only Sam was
able to accompany us as Eli had afterschool
basketball practice. To reach
the choicest fruit, Sam had climbed a
ladder while Elaine steadied it, and I
walked around the tree to select where
the boy would pick next. It was then
that I stepped on a yellow jacket nest,
which caused a squadron of the amber
and black striped demons to go nuclear
against me.
My first thought was that I had to
protect my spouse and grandson. " Run
to the truck! " I screamed. " Yellow jackets! "
Fortunately, Elaine and Sam were
on the side of the persimmon tree closest
to the pickup and they, at the sounds
of my distress, immediately
scudding toward the vehicle.
My concern for famElaine
steadies
a ladder while
Sam picks
persimmons
minutes before
the yellow
jacket attack.
ily members was totally
unwarranted, however, as
these wasps had clearly determined
that I alone was
the invading interloper. The
entire streaming horde descended
upon me like a living
ball of fury. The first sting came under
my right eye and the second jacket
struck just below my right knee. Had
their hastily conceived attack plan been
to first blind, then immobilize me? It
almost seemed so.
Unscathed, Sam and Elaine reached
the truck's safe interior first and I leaped
inside last, only to discover that several
more of the yellow jackets were fanatically
trying to sting me through my
overcoat. Hand-to-stinger fighting ensued
with casualties on both sides until
the human finally emerged victorious.
10 BLUERIDGECOUNTRY.COM
Too terrified to revisit the persimmon
tree during daylight and also desirous
to retrieve our ladder and gather
our annual quota of persimmons,
Elaine and I returned to the farm a
few nights later. As she shined a flashlight
up into the tree's boughs, I safely
picked persimmons under the cover
of darkness. Yellow jackets don't fly at
night; nevertheless, we gave their nest
site a wide birth.
Several weeks after the Homeric
began
conflict and Elaine's and my nocturnal
gathering, Sam and Eli walked across
the hollow from their house to ours to
help make persimmon/black walnut
pancakes for dinner. Our daughter
Sarah and her husband David had a
party to attend, and the boys were to
eat supper with Elaine and me. My
wife had sagely decided that the boys
would be too hungry and impatient
to wait for persimmon bread to come
from the oven and cool. The bread
baking could come later on a leisurely,
wintery Saturday afternoon.
Elaine assigned Sam the task of stirring
the pancake batter, which he attacked
with a joyful frenzy while Eli's
job was to add the nuts and pour the
mixture into a frying pan. I am constantly
amazed at how my wife always
makes each grandson feel that he is an
integral part of the cooking process.
Soon afterwards, Elaine served
us all steaming hot persimmon and
black walnut pancakes, which the boys
drenched with maple syrup.
I can't wait for that winter day when
we bake persimmon bread.
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Blue Ridge Country Sept/Oct 2024

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