nannie's pecans

here it is the end of january, and i still have not shown you the pictures from gathering up the pecans at my grandmother's house. shame on me. therefore, as i sit here waiting for the sun to come up just the slightest bit so i can go running (well jogging really.... more like a really really fast walk), i give you pictures. we were out there for less than an hour and managed to pick up 19 1/2 pounds of pecans. those suckers were EVERYWHERE. i later took them to the farmers market to have them cracked and last night while watching a pretty long movie started pulling the nuts from the shell. after two hours i barely made a dent in the box, so for the next week, every evening i will be working hard to get all the nuts shelled and in the freezer. i want to make a pecan pie of sorts, but i want a recipe that does not contain any corn syrup. somehow i stumbled onto this blog discussing the history of food with some pretty interesting recipes. that is where i found this recipe for a pecan pie that has more of a custard feel to it, and who doesn't like custards? i sure do. so, hopefully sometime in the near future there will be a historic pecan pie on the horizon.

my nannie and papa's house. how cute it that??

their back yard.
yep, it goes all the way back to the tree line.
and that's just the back!!!

part of the front and side yard with pecan trees.
i think she counted about 17 pecan trees in all.

mine and ray's retirement cabin.

back/side yard.
there's ray picking pecans.
can you see him??

here he is.
he's using nannie's pecan picker upper tool.

these tools were pretty cool. one was made from the handle of a golf putter.
great for you back, but they slowed me down. so i went the old fashion way of squatting and picking, squatting and picking. oh the legs were sore for two days.

there she is... my nannie.
thanks for the free and yummy pecans!!