I assume that’s right, but I do see a little discoloration on the flesh of the fruit, which could be either bruising or microbial. The species is a known host of Phytophthora cinnamomi, though I haven’t noticed any sign of it. That’s the main potential pathogen I’d be concerned about.
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I missed this part. In that case they are probably perfect ripeness and slightly dried out. They have a strongly astringent/chemical taste until right when they are perfectly ripe. They are not soft like a ripe avocado until they are quite rotten, and only if they don’t dry out first.
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Many of the seeds seem to be rotting… I thought I could get away with planting them unstratified. 
Lesson learned. I saved two unplanted, so I’ll put ‘em in a moist paper towel in a bag in the refrigerator and check back in a few months.
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If none of them work out, I’m happy to send another batch next year, hopefully it will be a more normal year for production and I can send a bigger bag of them.
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I came across a seedling of my tree in an area where it was not welcome, so decided to try digging it up:
Not sure what I’ll do with it, probably give it away in the little free plant library down the street, but figured I’d share the photo.
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Such a pretty little tree, it looks like an avocado!
How heavy does the mother tree crop? Is it an alternate bearer?
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UV light sterilizer? A friend at a lab with access to an X-ray machine?
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Would that work on pollen? I thought it was mainly used on bacteria, though I’m not well-versed in it.
If applicable, how long of an exposure under UV would be needed?
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Yes on pollen, your guess is as good as mine on time exposure but I know it was a method used successfully in the past. I’ve even seen an obsolete, working, dental x-ray machine on Facebook Marketplace for $10, recently! 
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Might those handheld UV devices popularized at the start of Covid work for the purpose? Or would they be too low intensity? The exposure time necessary even to kill bacteria seemed a little long when I last saw one.
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Last year it didn’t bear well, but I am not sure if that’s due to alternate bearing or if it was the hard frost we got right during the peak bloom, which killed a lot of them.
The previous year was a more typical harvest, even though the squirrels and birds (mostly crows and jays) got many more than I did. This photo that I posted above shows about 2/3 of my total harvest in 2021:
It flowered nicely this year and I’m expecting a bumper crop, though it’ll be another month or so before I can tell for sure what the fruit set is like.
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Fruit set looks good this year.
Also found another volunteer seedling in a shaded, neglected corner of the garden. This might be year 3, they seem grow very slowly at first, at least without supplemental nitrogen.
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Now that they are getting closer to ripe, that is looking like an understatement. In most years, each flower cluster sets at most one or very rarely two nuts. This year, doubles are very common and there are even many triples:
And in case I didn’t mention above, this is a rather large tree:
I’ll probably collect at least a bucket full this year even after the Stellar’s jays, crows, and squirrels have their fill. @Caesar let me know if you want another box of them! I’m guessing it’s 3-5 weeks from when they’ll start dropping.
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Heck yeah! Thank you! 
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As predicted! And the tree is still loaded. @Caesar I’ll send you a box next week! If anyone else wants a few let me know. I haven’t found a way that I enjoy eating them yet, but I probably didn’t roast them correctly.
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For anyone looking to eat bay nuts (such as those who are getting boxes from me @Caesar @zendog @jcguarneri), it’s apparently very important that you let them fully, slowly dry (weeks in a dry place) after you remove the husks and before roasting. That’s the step I’ve skipped and mine tasted too strongly of volatiles. Here’s the process recommended by Bay Nature:
Shuck, wash, and dry
At home, shuck the remnants of the avocado-like fruit and skin, to reveal a shiny brown seed about the size of a hazelnut. Rinse the nuts thoroughly and spread them out on a tray. Let them dry for a couple of weeks in a warm and well-ventilated location. Then they’re ready for the next essential step: roasting. Or you can store them this way for up to a year before roasting.Roast
DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP. Roasting bay nuts rids them of the strong volatile oils that can irritate your throat and digestive system. There are different opinions out there on how high to heat the oven, how long to keep the nuts in, how often to check and stir them on the tray. One source suggests 350 degrees F for 60-90 minutes. Some recipes say 400 degrees F for 45 minutes. Whichever you choose, make sure to check the nuts every 30 minutes or so to turn them and check for any burning. They should be good when the insides have turned to a very dark brown, resembling a roasted coffee bean.Shell and eat
Once roasted, you can liberate the inner seeds from their hard shells with a nutcracker (or lightly with a hammer)—and snack on them as is, or proceed with whatever bay nut recipe strikes your fancy. Trying grinding the nuts and brewing as a coffee substitute or making chocolate-like desserts with it. Or try working from a recipe like the Bay Nut Chicken Mole from Edible East Bay, or the Bay Nut Ricotta Cake from Rooted Food.
I do NOT recommend grinding them in a burr coffee grinder, they ruined mine when I tried that last year.
For anyone hoping to taste the fruit flesh, Indigenous peoples in its native range would scrape out the inner flesh, discarding the skin, and then mash that up to make some kind of cake or flatbread. I couldn’t find any recipes and haven’t tried to do that myself because it seemed like too much work for an unknown result, but let us know if you do it!
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A cup of freshly disinfected bay nuts. Thank you @swincher !
I washed the fruit with bleach, shucked the seeds, then soaked them in bleach for 2 or 3 minutes. A bit of dish soap, then a quick rinsing off, and the nuts are ready.
I’m still debating whether to eat half or plant them all.
For those I’ll plant, should I let ‘em dry for a couple of weeks, do some moist warm stratification, or just jump into the cold stratification in the fridge?
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Do not dry them out if you want to plant. I’d try putting half in soil right away and the other half in cold stratification first. They are native to pretty mild coastal climates where I believe they sprout over the winter, but here they come up in spring after the squirrels stratify them for me in the ground when they are fresh around now.
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