Kind Of Nutty...

The Pecan is the official state tree of Texas so I assume it must also be the official nut of Texas.  Apologies to my children, who grew up believing that distinction was held by my brother Pete (I don't know where they got that idea).  In fact, Pete is actually from Florida, and when Mom and Dad corrected his residency from Texas to there, the average intelligence of both states increased.  But I digress...

The Busted Handle Pecan Factory is enjoying its best harvest since we've lived here.  The nice big tree in the back yard has marble-sized, thick-shelled pecans that taste great but are just too much trouble to shell.  The big dogs enjoy crunching them, though, and the back porch will be covered with shell fragments if we don't sweep it often.  The little scraggly tree in the front yard, however, is loaded with big thin-shelled pecans.  I enjoy picking them up every day or so, and our recent cold snap will probably yield the last of the crop as the husks freeze or dry out, curl away from the pecans and let them drop to the ground or expose them for picking.

I can spend a productive time cracking them and picking them out by hand during a Cowboys game or an evening by the fire but, when I accumulate enough and have reason to go to Stephenville, I really enjoy taking them to a nursery there that has this Rube Goldberg machine for cracking them.  I wish I had invented it.  It looks like it's built from spare parts, so I'm sure I could have.  You pour your pecans in the top and they drop to a bin at the bottom, where a bicycle chain with little claws riveted to it that look like they were sawed off the back of a hammer rotates through the nuts, picking up one in each set of claws.  As the chain continues to rotate each pecan is carried upward past a little anvil where a hammer head is spring loaded and timed to whack it.  The claws continue over the top of the sprocket and dump the cracked pecans into the hopper at the left, where they're poured back into our gucket and taken home to be shelled.  It makes a joyful noise, sprays fragments all over the place and is a delight to watch.  A dollar a pound and worth every cent.  Someday I might build one if have have an old bicycle and enough hammers.

The result, whether shelled by me or Rube, is perfect for pies, cinnamon spiced pecans, or eating just as God made them.  We have plenty--come on down and help me eat'em.