The persimmon trees were not particularly tall. Two had been squeezed onto a small patch of spare slope, making use of every bit of space. They did not look very big either, so they probably had not been planted all that long ago.
But they certainly bore plenty of persimmons. Fist-sized fruit covered the branches, some already tinged faintly red. Clearly, they had been well fertilized and carefully tended.
Ye Yaodong tilted his head back to look. "There are so many! How is this little burlap sack going to hold them all?"
"It's enough. These can stay on the trees a few more days. If we pick too many at once, they'll all ripen, and whatever we can't finish will spoil. Fruit isn't worth much around here anyway. Ripe persimmons bruise easily, so they're hard to sell."
"In previous years, we mostly picked them to make dried persimmons. Those can fetch a little money. Or we pickle them to make crunchy persimmons. The adults and children at home all like pickled persimmons."
"The typhoon knocked quite a few down a couple of days ago, or there would be even more. We'll pick some to pickle today, so you can take them home when you leave the day after tomorrow. That morning, I'll get up early and pick some unripe ones for you too. You can either let them soften or dry them."
His father-in-law had thought of everything!
Dried persimmons were good; he could take them out to sea as a snack. Ye Yaodong liked pickled persimmons too. Nobody in their village knew how to make them. They just picked the fruit and left it to ripen and soften. Only people around his father-in-law's place pickled them, and the family often sent them some in previous years.
"We don't need