Something New

   Yesterday I did something new to me.  Daughter and family went on their annual chestnut foraging trip and I went along. Chestnut hulls are very spiky and sharp and pokey for your fingers. I don't know how the squirrels do it, unless they just wait till the nuts drop.  

  They go picking them because they roast and eat them all winter long.  Roasted chestnuts smell divine and I think they taste a little like a baked potato.  Adelaide says if you put a little butter and salt on them they taste even more like a baked potato.  They are a cozy, yummy winter treat.

  This is what they look like as they get ready to fall.  The husk opens and will either drop completely or just drop the nuts. 

                                       I thought this empty hull looked like a muppet mouth.

  Either way, the ground is covered.  I saw no squirrels.  Years ago we lived across from a park with one lone chestnut tree and you truly had to be there as they dropped to catch even one before the squirrels ran off with them.  In this grove there were thousands.

  On the way there Adelaide said to open them with our feet.  Wear old shoes and open them with our feet.  Then when we got there I was shown how to step on the sides of the spiky pointy sharp part, spread them a little and reach carefully in for the nuts.  Of course there were thousands on the ground that had fallen out of the husks that you just bent and picked up. 

It's hard to stop.  Kind of like picking strawberries and you just can't leave that one in the field.

                                                      Twenty eight pounds of yummy

                                             There's always time to stop and pick a flower.