Picking Pecans

As if your holiday season wasn’t busy enough.

Back in November, my husband came home chest-puffed-up proud of a huge almost busting garbage bag full of pecans one of his clients had brought him. I immediately thought, “Great! I won’t have to spend all that money on pecans at the grocery for my Christmas baking!”

So we first tried a proven method of pecan picking – we sent them to my grandmother with the offer that if she picked them, she could keep half the nuts. Unfortunately for all parties involved, Mama Dot could not crack the pecans. She got disgusted and said she thought that they were bad, we realized that maybe we had given my 86 year old grandmother too big a job that had frustrated her to no end. We brought the pecans home, one Ziploc full of picked nuts, and most of the garbage bag still full of nuts in the shell. Needless to say, in our busy household that garbage bag traveled from spot to spot for over a month. We just moved it out of our way or stacked bookbags on top of it until a few days before Christmas.

I set my husband and our 6 year old son at the kitchen table with a large bowl of pecans, and two empty bowls, one for shells and one for meat. They set to that job with gusto. Pete decided that his big 6 year old muscles were the best for operating the nutcracker and as pecan shells ricocheted off the kitchen walls, my husband and I started picking. I knew all I really needed was about 3 cups for some Special K cookies I was making but had visions of the Ziplocs full of extra pecans that I could stack in the freezer for later. About 30 minutes into the endeavor, we realized this was not the smooth sailing we had hoped for. My fingers hurt, and the kitchen floor was a mess. Not to mention, my husband was mentally calculating what his billable rate at the office would be in relation to the cost of the pecans he was shelling(he has decided he is ALWAYS better off in his office than at any manual labor chore I can give him eg. Lawyer $200/hour less Painter $15/hour = lawyer painting the house -$185/hour) At this point, a colleague of my husband's comes in to drop off a Christmas gift, chats for a while, and without a thought- most assuredly because he’s never picked a pecan in his life- sits at the table tossing handfuls of pecans into his mouth. As he’s chewing he says, “So what are you making a pie or something?” My husband stops picking, enjoys his friends company, and after the friend leaves looks at me and says, “I’d rather peel shrimp or pick crabs.” I tell him to stop, I have enough, and the unshelled pecans have now taken up residence in our carport.

Lots of observations about this-

1. When did our society start having so much disposable income that we would rather pay the grocery or processing plants to do jobs like shelling pecans?
2. Are we so busy that we don’t have time for those tasks anymore? Do we appreciate the pecans less because they come so easy?
3. What do the people who have pecan trees in their yards do? Besides take them to their lawyer.

It is my goal for my children to grow up and become happy, productive members of society. I try to teach them good stewardship with both their money and our Earth- don't waste, appreciate what you have.. In this case, I have decided to opt for the "everything in moderation" mantra. In the future, if we are ever so lucky to have another gift like the pecans, I plan to pull out what I can use and happily gift the rest- in small manageable portions- to others.