The Great Pecan Debate Rages On

This is a freehand digital painting - no photo, no filters or anything but a stylus, digital tablet and a home-grown pecan for a model. I posted it because I wanted to brush up on my Painter (software) skills and I had a pocketful of pecans yesterday when I came in to rest a bit after picking up pecans all morning.

Ok, it's a pecan - what's there to debate about a pecan?

Let me give you a little background and I'll bet a light begins to glimmer! My darling other half is from down-home Georgia stock even though he was pretty much raised in Florida and has lived here in North Carolina most of his adult life.

I was raised in Kansas on a farm even though I spent several years in Mississippi and most of my adult life here in North Carolina.

Needless to say, there's a rather large cultural difference and sometimes, an even larger difference in speech. Sort of, you say potAto, I say potAHto. So the great pecan debate rages on here especially during every pecan harvest.

I was raised to call these luscious nuts peCAHNs, my husband was raised to call them pEEcans. He's pretty stubborn and insists he's pronouncing the name correctly even though I've told him time and time again that a pee can is something you put under the bed in case you have to get up during the night!

What do you say?

Another "Two-fer"

This doe was out front this morning right along the edge of our pecan grove. She stood still while I got several photos of her and, while this isn't the best shot of her, I was surprised to find a bonus in it when I downloaded it from my camera!

If you'll look at the bottom right of the photo (click to enlarge), you'll see one of the pesky bandits we have to combat in our quest to harvest ripe pecans! You might say that we could surely spare a few for the squirrels but they come in hordes from the woods surrounding us and can literally strip the trees of nuts in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Plus, they aren't the only thieves we have among us! The crows are very clever and will drop the pecans into the driveway in hopes that we'll run over them with the cars! That way they can just dig in and feast on the already cracked pecans!

Then there are the raccoons and possums and even our neighbor down the road has confessed to picking up a pocketfull from near the road while he was supposed to be picking up trash along the shoulders of the road!

So, maybe the pecans that the squirrels get don't sound like a big deal but I'm thinking that we'd better blast some rock music (or maybe a 410) or there won't be any nuts for us to collect! After all, we're the ones who planted the trees, watered and fertilized them and who have waited patiently for over 20 years for the trees to bear a nice crop - I'd sure like to be the one to reap the harvest!