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Chances are if you’ve been out with us,

we’ve given you something seasonal to taste while you’re on the boat. It’s very common for us to offer guests a sour apple flavored leaf from a sourwood tree, a wintergreen twig from a sweet birch, or a sun-warmed muscadine grape. Right now, American persimmons are ripe and dropping onto the forest floor, providing much needed nutrients for bears, foxes, and deer. These animals are building their fat reserves for the coming winter. According to the Old Farmers Almanac, you can even predict how severe winter will be by cutting open a persimmon seed and looking at the shape of the seed embryo. If you see a fork, winter will be mild, a knife means sharp cold that cuts right through you and a spoon, well, you guessed it… you’ll be shoveling some snow this year. We’ve been tasting the ones we can reach and so far, each seed we’ve opened has a spoon. Personally, I’d love to see a good snow. And like these animals, I hope to be curled up in my den, snug, warm and watching it as it peacefully falls on the Jocassee Gorges. Fingers crossed the predictions are true! ~ Sheryl White, JLT guide