09 October 2011

bumper crop of acorns 2011

to say that central louisiana and a lot of the rest of the country had a long, hot, drought'y spring and summer would be an understatement.

that's why we are surprised to see so many acorns this fall; hopefully its a good sign that over fall and winter the wildlife will have enough to eat.

the snaps below are from a few oak trees that are nearby and didnt receive any supplemental waterings or fertilizer apart from what an oak tree deep in the woods did.

click picture to enlarge

live oak
oak trees are found playing a part in many significant biblical events, including one of the times that the ancient of days appeared, to prophet abraham and sarah; many scholars believe that they fellowshipped together beneath oak trees.
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pin oak

this pin oak tree is heavily laden with acorns too.

the ground beneath the trees is saturated with acorns.
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wild pecan tree

when we got around to the few pecan trees that we know of near here, sadly we could tell that they didnt make nothing especially compared to the oaks. we wondered why and that got us to thinking about the states commercial pecan harvest.

so, we turned to google and somehow landed on the website of natchitoches pecans @ little eva plantation in cloutierville, natchitoches parish, louisiana.

the lady who answered the phone there, julie swanson, was very friendly she said that their crop "looks as good as it did last year and we had a good crop last year."

she explained, "we've gotten rain along [the year] ... best we can tell our crop looks pretty good. i know a lot of people have been affected by the drought and all, but so far everything is looking good for us."

we told her what we were on about, she replied, "that's kinda like pecan trees too though. 'sometimes they are ... sometimes not' -- it just depends on the area and if your tree had a lot of pecans on it last year."

she said "we havent gotten a lot of rain overall, this area of louisiana, but it's been spots -- 'hot spots' here and there."

there is an orchard in south louisiana she believes that isnt going to have much of a harvest this year.

we didnt want to keep her long it being sunday and all, so that was our pecan lesson for the day.

she said that the quality of this years pecans wont be known until harvest which is in a week to ten days from today and invited us to call her back then and we just might.

we were looking around on their website to see if there was anything to add that we might have forgot to ask her on the phone and turns out that little eva plantation is a very historical place.

for instance, it has a tie to the author, harriet beecher stowe and is birthplace to the painter, clementine hunter.

so check it out: www.natchitochespecans.com
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fall sunflower
in late august we sowed a few seeds we found left over and several came up. this one bloomed yesterday.