Harvesting Chestnuts

Saturday, October 12, 2014

Today is one of those perfect fall days that fill state park parking lots with cars, pickups and horse trailers.  The sky opened the day azure and full of sunshine to show sumac and maple leaves off to best advantage and has mellowed into a partly overcast with patches of its original brilliance, but even the clouds are white and gilded with sunshine.  And the sassafras and hickory leaves glow more golden and rich in the filtered light.

In the luster of the afternoon sun, a bowl of chestnuts sits, ancient as the White-Tailed Deer who I stole them from.  Our daughter, Sarah, home from college for the weekend, helped me gather the nuts from their prickly husks yesterday afternoon before dinner.  The deer had hoovered all of the nuts on the grass beneath the Chinese-American Chestnut hybrid that old Zeke planted years ago on the farm.  But, using sticks, Sarah and I were able to knock ripe nuts, still in their sharp-spined husks down and extract the beautiful chestnuts.

I don't know how ancient people managed to pluck the rich nuts from their prickly protection, but we used our sneakers to peel away the husks, popping open the seed ball and carefully picking out one, two or even three lustrous, earthy nuts to drop into our collecting bag.  When it came to reaching the really high-up nuts just out of reach of our sticks, we stood for a moment, puzzling how to snag them, wishing for the telescoping apple picker up the hill in the barn. Sarah brightened, "What am I thinking?  I'm standing next to a forest!"  and disappeared off into the woods, returning with a truly Olympic-length pole.  We bagged a bunch more nuts, enough to make a really good batch of roasted chestnuts.













Why is it that wielding a long stick, on a sunny Friday afternoon, gathering food from the land makes me feel that delight of childhood?  How natural it feels to gather nuts, to chat with our dear Sarah, to listen to the Blue Jays in the woods, and breathe the fresh autumn air.  Humans were made to interact with the land, with each other, and to admire the beauty of the earth and all of Creation.

May you find the fruits of the land, and the beauty of the land in sustaining abundance this week!
Betsy