PECAN PICKERS

I thought that pecans only grew in the south. Right there that shows you how much I know about pecans and how much I know about the south. I guess it could be called "the Pecan Pie Syndrome." Pecan pie is southern, therefore pecans are southern. That, and when I visited a distant relative in Opelousas, Louisiana, she set out bowls of "parched pecans" for us. Ergo, pecans and southerns are inextricably linked in my mind.

So it was with real surprise this last fall I read in the newspaper that down on the north side of the Santa Ana River bed in the area just west of Rubidoux there is a pecan grove, and the annual Pecan Festival and picking was going to be held on the upcoming Saturday. The article said to participate, bring your own bags and $3 per person. That entitled you to as many pecans as you wanted AND a day of fun with displays of all types, as well as some horse-drawn wagon rides, dancing exhibitions and food, food, food.

I suggested to daughter Kerry that she and Brian might want to bring the little girls out for the day. She did, and all of us were amazed at how much fun $3 each bought! This annual event is put on by the Riverside Parks and Recreation Department. The only other event we had gone to sponsored by this group was a night walk to see bats and owls along the river. For our money, it was a total bust. One of the problems with old people (us) is that we don't have much of a tolerance for noisy, obnoxious and pushy little children, and that is exactly what the night walk turned out to be. First, there was a PowerPoint presentation on bats in a small conference room, and the children were so noisy we couldn't hear a thing that was said. Once we started on our walk (which was led by a substitute leader because the regular leader was ill), the noise made by these unsupervised kids (while their parents proudly beamed at their little brats) insured that no bat and no owl would come anywhere near our walk area. And since there were no fowl, the leader talked about constellations in the sky, of all things. From that one experience we were rather leery of what we would face at the Pecan Picking.

We were very pleasantly surprised. As daughter Kerry said afterward, "There is nothing in the whole of Los Angeles that for $3.00 can be as much fun as we've had today." One of the ladies there gave us instructions of what kinds of shells to pick out, how to dry them, and how to roast them. A lady who runs a Possum Rescue facility had some darling little guys to show us. There were llamas contentedly chewing, chewing, chewing while we all snapped photos. There were baby goats, bird exhibits, a wonderful group of terrariums on display loaded with all kinds of little critters, and then, of course, the chili dogs and cokes.

After we had our fill of the exhibits, we headed out to the grove to find our pecans. Jerry and I, being old with fairly creaky joints, opted to merely find pecans and point them out to our little Olivia and Justine. At first we were concentrating on the areas fairly close to the exhibits, but finally a lady told us that if we went "over there," pointing to a distant outcropping of trees about half a city block from us, that we would find more pecans than we could ever use. We headed out. And she was right. There were far more than we needed.

The little girls had lots of fun, but what surprised me is how intensely their parents hunted for those pecans too. I took pictures of the little girls, but only the one above, of Brian and Kerry, really made me laugh. It is obvious that they were enjoying themselves immensely.

I am sorry to report that they had little success in drying their pecans. It may have been that the climate in LA - the air much more moist than in Riverside - just wasn't dry enough to suit the pecans. Or it may be that the family were not as dilligent as they could have been in processing the operation. However, I suspect that the adults will not want to go to the Pecan Festival next year, since now they know it is a lot easier to buy a bag of pecans from the grocery store than to harvest and process them. So I'll have to keep my eye open for something coming up that will catch their fancy and still give them $3.00 worth of fun!