Pecan Season

Is nearly upon us, pretty much on the same schedule as the election. One of Higher Ground's many past incarnations was as a pecan orchard and a lot of the old trees are still standing (and dropping enormous branches). We'll have a couple tons of nuts on the ground, the vast majority of which will stay there. The local farm stand folks will sell them but that would be a huge effort; it's like haying, one must have the proper equipment to make it worthwhile.

Myself, Granny, and Princess Jay will fill up a cooler, hook up a trailer to the golf cart, take a couple of picker-uppers (they look like a slinky on a stick), and pick up pecans till the trailer is full or the cooler is empty, whichever comes first, The nuts will be spread out on a big screen for a few days to dry out and provide our resident squirrel population a veritable Bonanza. The next weekend we'll shell out whatever the squirrels leave for us, bag them up, and give away most for Christmas presents. I keep about ten pounds for our use; there's lots of nut allergies in the family or we'd easily double that amount.

Pecans generally bear biannually. They are the last to leaf out in the spring, and flower around May. They like a lot of water, and most of the fancy cultivars require lots of special nutrition and frquent spraying. Fortunately these old, unimproved natives are very low maintenance.