You’d Stoop to Pick Up a Nickle, Wouldn’t You?
Pecans.
They’ve been raining from the trees for the last month.
More so than I remember in recent years.
Or maybe because I’m seeing more folks out picking them up off the ground?
This must be the way they harvest them in those irrigated professional orchards.
But in a small town built in the middle of a pecan grove, this is what you see.
White buckets.
People use them.
Dogs use them.
Okay, I think those are technically walnuts with the Goldy but you get the idea. White folks, black folks, young or old — people have been seen around town stooping to pick up nuts.
Michael stopped my the house the other day to see if I needed any thing done.
My garden was in sore need of weeding and I wasn’t going to get out there anytime soon. Before he got to work on my weeds, we got to talking.
“Someone’s been getting your pecans,” he said.
“Yes, lots of people have come by asking to pick them up. The last one was my pastor,” I said with a laugh.
“You know,” he paused to put a piece of pecan in his mouth, “I used to be the only one in town picking up buckets full and everyone used to laugh at me. Now everyone’s doing it.”
* * *
Out walking the dog this afternoon, I turned down a gravel road.
I saw an unfamiliar car parked and a white bucket off to the side of the road.
The farther I walked up the clay road, a woman, man and teenager came around the corner with bags full of pecans.
“You are going what I need to be doing,” I joked — in small towns it appears impolite not to engage conversation on a gravel road when you are the only parties traveling it.
I think she mistook my comment – for she asked if this was my property.
I said no and that I wasn’t sure whose it was.
The next few minutes were spent discussing the price per pound folks within a 50 mile radius were paying for nuts.
She explained they pay more for the big round ones.
“Every time I pick one up I think — there’s a nickle,” she said with a laugh bending over to pick up a nut.
When I got home I unleashed the dog and got a bag.
And picked up a bunch of Thomas Jeffersons.
Do you stop to pick up a nickle? A penny?
Linking up with Greta @Gfunkied and Julie @Mamamash for another Wednesday’s iPPP.
