After a busy week, we wrapped up a few local chores and errands at home in Staunton, and started the holiday weekend Friday morning with a specific mission. Inspired by our visit to a local nursery last weekend, we hoped to find ripe pawpaw fruit in the wild. In particular, we wanted to collect some wild fruit to eat, and also collect the seeds to grow new trees with and bring novel dna to our pawpaw patch. We are saving all of the seeds from our fruit and we are going to plant them at the farm. A dedicated search on the iNaturalist app showed us locations along our route from home to the farm in Buckingham County where pawpaw trees, flowers and fruit were observed and identified. Some of the observation sites along or near our route were private land, so we ruled them out. But we began to notice the pawpaw trees by the side of the road as we drove to and from the Farm. Especially where rivers, creeks and streams crossed the road. We saw Black walnut trees and many pawpaw trees. Having tried a couple ripe pawpaws last weekend, we figured it would be worth stopping to take a look if we saw accessible, fruiting pawpaw trees. They fall off the tree when ripe. So far, we have found about 20 in various stages of ripeness. A few were so far gone, we had to just plant them in a pot. We have at least a hundred seeds now and we have them stored in the refrigerator. We’ve also gotten to eat a few of these creamy, tropical-tasting native fruit.