We have husband and wife pecan trees in our yard. A husband and wife tree is an old custom from New England where a (you guessed it) husband and a wife would plant two identical trees side by side by the entrance of their home, and they would grow together as a testimony of their love and fidelity. I don't know who planted our husband and wife trees, but they are quite large. Their boughs have grown together such that their outline is as one large tree instead of two.
The two trees make great pecans (puh CAHNS), but they are small. They are, however, good and rich because they're full of oil. They're just hard to crack, so we generally take them to the feed store in town where they have a pecan cracking machine that cracks them. We then take them home and sit in front of the fireplace all winter shelling them for pecan pies!
Mom and Dad came over the other day and we laid out a blanket and walked around the trees, filling up a 5 gallon bucket. From those trees, we've picked 4 1/2 five gallon buckets of pecans. We also have a wagon filled with pecans as well that Ginger, our cat, has decided is a nice place to lounge throughout the day after hunting all night.
Our neighbors had made a coconut dessert Sunday afternoon and wanted to share a couple of slices with us. They walked over and we visited. They are real busy with a construction project. So busy, in fact, that they don't have time to pick up pecans. They offered that we could pick up all we could and were going to leave their "pecan-picker-upper" out by the tree.
That contraption is a back-saver. As you get older, I've learned, you come to appreciate things like this so you don't have to constantly bend over. This is like the slinky we used to play with as kids, you roll it and the pecans go inside until its full.
It's so easy, it almost feels like you're cheating.
Tricia was using an older model of the same device. This one, I think, was my great-grandmother's. When it's full, you simply pull back the wires and allow the pecans to tumble out. We began to quickly fill the wagon...
Our neighbor's pecan trees are LARGE pecans. I'm telling you, we felt kind of funny picking these compared to ours. Tricia said, "Man, our pecans are about 1/3 the size of theirs!" It's true. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's pecans, came to mind.
The neighbor's pecans on the left. The largest of our pecans on the right.
We will let the pecans sit for a couple of weeks and after a cold front comes through, we'll begin shelling them. I enjoy sitting and shelling pecans. It is an enjoyable pastime in the fall. Pecans freeze well, so we'll freeze them, but we'll turn many into pies and will roast and salt others. The neighbors have a recipe with cinnamon and sugar pecans. Looking forward to all of that!
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