pecans on the table

Thank you for your thoughtful words regarding my post about my grandparents’ home. Writing is therapeutic for me. I came home from saying ‘goodbye’ to their home and just wrote. I appreciate your gentleness with me as I shared here. I love your suggestions to print out that post and drop it off to the new owners. I’m going to do that. Thank you.

It got cold here over the weekend. And by cold, I mean it got in the 30s, which basically constitutes hibernation for me. While everyone is talking about how much they love sweaters and layers and lattes with pumpkin spice, I’m thinking “No Thank You!” to all of it. Give me shorts, tank tops and strawberry lemonade every day.  However, as much as the arrival of colder temperatures makes me a bit sad, there is one thing I do look forward to each fall. Pecans.

Sure, you can get pecans from the store, but it is not the same as a new harvest still in their shells and on my kitchen table.

I make it through the dark, cold months by cracking pecans most nights.  It is something I did with my grandma growing up. My grandparents had a huge pecan tree in their little yard. Every year hundreds of pecans would fall to the ground. We’d make a game of gathering them up and grandma would crack and jar them all. Her freezer was always full of big glass jars of pecans. My grandparent’s kitchen table always had a bowl with shelled pecans on it. As we gathered around that table, it just felt natural to start cracking pecans. When hands are busy, we lingered at the table longer.

Last year my friend Ann invited us to her family pecan farm to gather pecans. She invited us again this year. My kitchen table will again have a bowl that draws us to the table and beckons our conversations to last longer.

Ann’s little boy helped…so did Arley, our puppy. My other kids were there too, but they kept going the opposite direction I went – chasing dogs was involved.

Fall is here. Pecans on the table, just like Grandma’s.  Our hands will be busy, we will linger at the table longer. Maybe I do like fall…just a little.