Primitive Archer

Eric, one of the patches is in shade, the other in the sun. These patches are at about 2500' elevation, the patch in the shade is along our creek the other above the creek where my native plant nursery used to be a long with other trees and plants in our arboretum. I took pics of both on my morning walk this morning and will post them later.
 As far as I know we don't have a lot of pawpaws around here. The only other one I've ever seen was years ago along a road up in Madison county above Asheville.

I took a different approach to shooting stones or lead balls with any bow! I made an arrow with a small funnel at the front and a slide like used on fishing arrows that is attached to a fur rabbit skin or rag. You load ball into funnel and place a bit of wadding over to keep projectile from falling out, like a muzzle loader. When you pull back and release arrow the drag stops arrow in about three yards but the ball keeps on going at arrow speed.
50 cal. lead ball will leave a dent in car door at 20 yards!!!  cheers fiddler49

I remember thay build, and recall thinking that was a brilliant idea.

Ripen green paw paws on the counter like bananas for the best results.

Pat, I walk through three different paw paw patches on my exercise trail, they are all iffy on pollination, a late frost when the flowers are fully formed will often result in little or no fruit. It is not uncommon for one or two trees out of 10 to have fruit and the others to have none. Big crops are very rare where I walk, usually there are just a few fruits in the whole patch. This is hilly terrain with the largest patch down low on the north side of the ridge where the trees get very little sun. The paw paw trees, being smaller, have also been shaded out by the mature oaks and hackberry trees. I would imagine a patch in the full sun would do much better than all of the shaded patches that I walk through.

My friend Sabine picked up archery at age 50 with a 35# I had made her. Being naturally strong and tall she managed form quickly and moved up to ELBs of around 80#.
On flight shoots in Germany, France and GB she competed with a British lady by the name of Emma Erry over a stretch of maybe ten years. On all these shoots the women's win was always between the two. Since Emma is even taller, stronger and 10 years younger Sabine now makes a permanent second.
Pic shows her in 2013 pulling my 65#@30" Osage to 29" with the left shoulder not yet being able to manage that draw weight. It was her 2nd year in archery, and it was the beginning of her "heavy weight" years.
PS her best flight shot was bit short of 270"

I've shot with Emma a few times (she even gave me a spare pair of socks when I got soaking wet  ). She is a statuesque, funny and all round impressive woman
Del

Persimmon is one of my absolute favorite fruits. So sweet and juicy with an almost jelly texture flesh where the skin will peel off with a light tug. So good.