Shake the sugar tree

My new friend Julie, who's son attends Streed's co-op, invited us to watch a pecan harvest at a near-by orchard last week. She said we (the kids) needed to wear some sort of hard hat so that when the pecans fell they would not get hurt. It was such a pretty day. The farmer and his wife were great. They told us all about how to prepare the ground around the tree, where they put the nuts to separate them into sizes and then how the other machine cracks them. The tractor has some sort of attachment that wraps around the pecan trees and shakes them. It was hilarious to see leaves and pecans falling down on the kids. We all left with pecans and some awesome fresh broccoli that ella was eating by the handfulls on the way home. I had to take it from her so we could have some during the week. I even learned that there is a native nut that is small and a desireable nut that comes from grafting a tree into a native tree. Here are some of the sweet pics. Streed liked the dog Duke the best of all!