Bumper Crop

 

We’ve had a bumper crop of pecans this year.  Some years are lean, some years are a bust, but this year the nuts keep dropping.  It’s a wonderful thing.  We’ve been gathering them in since early November.   The first couple of baskets we toted back to Farmville and commenced to cracking using my dad’s tried and true nutcracker.  It’s one of those cylinder types that you adjust to the nut size and then pull the handle down to make the connection.  It works great.  That connection cracks the nut and sends shell fragments to all corners of the room.  Then the real work begins where each nut has to be separated (their two lobes are attached) and gently scraped of any shell debris.  This is serious work because  random shell pieces make for a  bitter bite.  It’s tedious, if not mindless work.  So you can imagine how delighted we were to discover the “Crackin’ Man.”   This fella over in Tyner has this thingamajig that cracks pecans.  It goes twenty-four-seven this time of year.   It’s a wonder to behold.  After weighing your nuts (he charges per lb. before hulling) he dumps the bucket into the hopper and the mechanized chain driven action begins.   Each nut is pulled through the press and just the right amount of pressure is applied.  They come out the bottom and drop into a paper bag all ready to go.  You still have to do the cleaning up and picking out, but that goes pretty fast.  We had our 10 pounds cleaned, roasted and packaged up for gift giving in no time.  It’s a pure wonder.   Let ‘um keep dropping.