“There is no return in an endeavor without first there is education and effort.”
c.e.hollis
Toasted pecans 
Those of you who enjoy reading about our farm may like to hear about how we work and harvest a pecan crop so this post I’ll be sharing some of the how-to.
This week starts the actual shaking of the trees and the harvesting. For weeks Ron has been busy getting ready for the harvest. For many years he has been educating himself after planting our orchard of 340 trees. Ron went to conferences and classes at OSU to learn to plant, graft, prune, water, nurture, protect, and tend the trees. Now he is learning how to harvest the nuts and get them safely to market.
Fifteen years back we planted our pecans trees. This is the first year that we needed more big equipment because we couldn’t handle the harvesting by hand. The work is harder without all the right equipment but Ron is resourceful.
With pecans beginning to fall, he is anxious to get the crop in. (He has put shields on the tree trunks to help ward off squirrels. He has sprayed for weevils once. He warns off the crows but they like pecans too.) He has fertilized the orchard and kept it mowed and now is beginning the work of shaking, gathering, and cleaning the pecans of sticks and hulls that the harvester picked up.
The next step is floating (to sort out poor pecans), washing and drying the nuts, bagging and taking several hundred pounds to a dealer to be weighed and cracked. These first of the season pecans will be for our freezer and to sell and give to others. The later harvest of nuts he will wholesale to pecan companies who have more machinery, storage coolers, and markets. Those go into Super-Sacks that hold fifteen hundred pounds!
Someday we may have all the setup to harvest, clean, shell, store, and market our own crop, but in the meantime, Ron keeps up the hard work with the equipment he has. He is enjoying being a tree farmer and working cattle besides. He doesn’t mind me baking him a honey pecan pie or a pan of cinnamon rolls now and then either.
This book, What’s Good About Home, is a collection of stories and illustrations written by a stay-at home mom of seven to encourage stay-at-home mothers in their important life’s work.
Life with Mama This book is about a mom who raised nine children and lived a beautiful, happy, God-filled life. The stories will make you laugh and sometimes cry. Read Mama’s favorite scriptures and her wise sayings.
What’s Good About Home! 
Beautiful Elece! The photos of your books uploaded fine!
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Thanks, Ron! Yes, they’re posted by the hardest.
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I can almost taste that pecan pie !
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It smells like mulled cider today since I made and canned pear sauce and pear jelly yesterday. It’s a good fall scent mixed with the smell of our first wood stove fires.
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