Pine Nuts

One of the first thing I remember about Dad's new truck was after Kathryn was born and Laverna was in the 6th grade. I was 8 and in the third.


Daddy put all side boards on the truck and a tarp over it for a tent of sorts, He took all of us kids out of school a week for 10 days of pine nut picking in the forest. I"m not sure where we went, Elvin told me it was north of Enterprise, Utah

What a glorious time we had sleeping in the back of the truck on a mattress as we drove along, looking at the stars.

Dad would find a place that was loaded with pine cones popping with large pine nuts. There he would set up camp. Mom had a new baby plus Erik and Deanna were not all that old. I don't recall her complaining.

Mom's job was to be camp cook. Dad built the fire pit with large stoned to contain the fire.  There was an iron griddle set up to cook on.  Daddy got to show off his Dutch oven cooking skills too.

The rest of us were to gather the pine nuts. Dad said they would bring in a fortune that winter. Dad and Elvin would gather the cones in burlap bags to work over later while the rest of us got on hands and knees picking loose ones from the ground.

Each evening as we sat around the camp fire Dad would roast a pan of salted nuts for us to enjoy. We laughed at little Erik who wanted to help too. The tiny handful of nuts he brought to his mother to roast for him were dried sheep pellets.

One day as we were out picking pine nuts from the ground, I go thirsty and went back to camp by myself. As I walked alone in the quiet solitude, I began to think I had walked a very long way. Something whispered to me to turn and o back the way I had come. After another half hour I finally found the camp that I  had passed unknowingly. No one but myself knew just how lost I had been. I was so upset I did not want to leave camp again all day.

In the camp fire glow our family grew close as we exchanged stories and Daddy told us poems he had memorized.

"Last night there was a Golden ring around the moon, Tonight no moon I see. The skipper laughed a scornful laugh, A scornful laugh laughed he. Ha Ha!

I can still hear him as a real moon sailed through the clouds overhead.