{ Pecans everywhere }

I've sat so many times, stared out the window, and counted my blessings. 

To be living in the country, which was always a dream of Curt's and I, is amazing in and of itself, but to be surrounded by beautiful land, and then to top that with an abundance of Pecan Trees, seems almost too good to be true.

I have loved Pecans from as far back as I remember.  When living in South Africa, one of my favorite desserts was the Pecan Nut Pie, or the Pecan Pie as it's known here in the States.  My dad loved it just as much as I did, and I even recall one certain day, in my teens, attempting to make a Pecan Pie using Golden Syrup.  Needless to say, it really didn't turn out quite well, more like a mushy watery mess, but it tasted amazing.

I have made many Pecan pies since then, or PEE-CUN nut pies as we pronounced in South Africa :)

October seems to be our harvest month, every year our Pecan trees dump an enormous amount of bounty on the ground.  The first year the crop was not very good, the pecans were mostly bad, the few that weren't tasted quite bitter and I was a bit disappointed thinking that, here we were, surrounded by Pecan trees and not able to enjoy them.

This past weekend was our Pecan harvest, we spent a few hours under the watchful eyes of these guys across the street.  We gathered as much as we could off the grass, and shook as many branches as we could, but there are quite a few still left on the upper branches that we either couldn't reach, or they weren't ready yet.

This weekend, we will be back out there, going from tree to tree, with bucket in hand gathering as many as we can.

This week, I've spent my time cracking pecans and working on the bucket we already have in hand.  The weather has cooled down, I'm not outside as much as I am during the summer, so it's been the perfect thing to do, well, aside from the usual house chores.

I sit at my dining table with pecans in hand, pop a show on my laptop, and spend an hour or so just cracking and shelling.  It often reminds me of my great grandmother Ema, she would sit around the holidays time, with a bowl of varied nuts before her, and just crack away, popping them into her mouth, happily munching.

Back in her day, she would have sat at the table with a bucket of green beans, working on those, or peeling potatoes. 

Different chores, but very alike in a way and I'm so proud to follow in her footsteps when it comes to homemaking. 

I'm nowhere near finished, it seems that it takes hours just to shell a handful of pecans, so I gather I'll be at this for quite a few days. 

I'm kind of pushing myself to get it all done this week because I want to get them stored, frozen etc. as soon as I can, certainly don't want them to go bad.

It's a truly blessing to have God's bounty bestowed upon us.  For many years, I shied away from buying Pecans because of how expensive they are, so I really am thankful for what I now have. :)

With that said, I best get on with my work.  Have a wonderful day :)