Let's go back to the "Good Old Days" again.
I love the month of October. Not only is it my birth month but it also is the beginning of fall. With fall comes some of God's most beautiful work with colors.
Some of the ways that we use to enjoy this time of year were hayrides and hickory nut hunting. Hickory nuts are a sweet nut....excellent for the up and coming holiday baking. After the first frost and the trees would drop their nuts; our family, my two uncles and their family and my grandfather would go to the woods to hunt for the hickory nuts. Since the woods were behind the cow pasture, we would take a tractor pulling either a mud boat or a manure spreader. Both implements were scary to ride; but that just made it all the more fun. The mud boat was like a hugh wooden sled. We would put buckets upside down on it to sit on but when we hit bumps (which was often) it could knock you right off the mud boat. The manure spreader is just what the name saids (use to spread manure) It was like a wagon with chains in the bottom and prongs at the back. When turned on the chains would move the manure to the back where the prongs would throw the manure off in the field. When we used it for hickory nut hunting we would put planks across to sit on and made sure no one turned it on. We rode around in it like a pile of shit. lol
Off to the woods to find hickory nuts. The trees were not hard to find because the trunk of the tree were shaggy and could be seen at a distance. When we found a tree, we would park the tractor and every one would grab a bucket and start to pick up hickory nuts. Now over 50% of the nuts that you found had worm holes in and were no good........but they still had a use. We use to throw the wormy nuts at each other. Finding the nuts was not easy to do. You had to look under logs and stones and leaves..........in thistle, weeds and poison ivy. My uncle Paul would unhook the tractor and put a metal bucket on his head and used the tractor to bump the tree to get the tree to drop some more nuts. But not thinking ahead.........as the nuts dropped and hit the bucket on his head it made such a racket Uncle Paul always ended up with a headache.
Some times I would take a toy out to the woods and hide it to see if I could find it the next year when we went hickory nut hunting. I would put it under a fallen tree or a big rock or just bury it by a tree. Some times I would find it the next year and some times not. If the toy was plastic it was just dirty but if it was metal it was all rusty. (Actually I would take one of my brothers toys..........didn't want to loose any of mine).
At the end of the day we would all head back on the mud boat or the manure spreader, all covered with thistles and burrs. All the way home we would be picking them off of each other. When we got back we would lay the nut out on old screen doors to dry. A couple weeks later we would peel the outer layer off the nut and let them dry some more. Then my mom would crack the nuts in a bench vice and have a big bowl of them. Grandma and Grandpa would come over and pick out the nut meat. Mom would have all the nuts she needed for holiday baking.
Now if you wanted to have a pound of hickory nuts it would cost you about $18.00 and you would have none of the fun.
From your local reporter Zoom Zoom
