Texas persimmons

When we bought the land for our home it had quite a bit of trees on it. We asked to keep as many of the trees as we could (with the exception of gross cedar trees - who needs cedar fever). This means that we have a ton of oak and also persimmon trees. When you drive through our community you don't see many people that have kept persimmon trees. I'm not sure if they just didn't have as many as we did, thought they were too small and slow growing, or didn't like that the female trees grow messy fruit. We didn't know what to expect from the fruit because we don't know anything about the tree - haven't ever seen one before that we know of. My mom remembers having an aunt with a persimmon tree and it made pretty reddish orange fruit that they would set out in a dish and could only eat when it was very ripe or it was very tart. Well, that's not what we have. I've now found out that we have Texas persimmons and that is quite different. A Texas persimmon makes berries that grow to be around 1 inch around. They start green and turn black when ripe. They will fall from the tree and splat on the ground (that's why they're so messy). Deer, birds, and other wildlife may eat them but they are edible for humans too. They ripen from July to September and I hadn't paid much attention to the trees until Chris told me a few weeks ago that they were ready. Sure enough - some are.The black, ripe berries.I picked almost 2 dozen and Alex and Zachary thought they were blueberries. They are very soft and almost a little bit fuzzy like a peach. I washed them off and we tried them.First I tried to eat the skin but I didn't like that. I never found instructions on how to eat them so I didn't know. They were slightly sweet but not a ton of flavor - not bad though. The boys each tried one but didn't ask for more. They also have very black fruit and juice inside and are used also to make dye! Every time I ate one I ran to the bathroom to make sure my teeth weren't turning black! I think they might be worth it to pick if they can be made into a jelly or a wine where we can just cook/squish them up and don't have to peel them. Or just eat them with the skin.