Eating "All-Natural"

We've had occasion several times in the past few days to go out and enjoy nature and the foods thereof, and I thought I would turn it into a post.

First, some new friends invited us over for dinner, and afterwards we out to help them harvest their garden.  They even gave us some of the produce!

 The boys love carrots, which seems weird to me for little boys, but I'm not complaining!

Then, this weekend, some of our closest friends invited us to go out and gather pine nuts, as the season is in full swing and why would you miss the chance to be outside when it's so nice?

 

Steven found the first pine cone and mushroom, and he was very proud:

 We didn't find enough food in the woods to sustain us (we were too close to the road and almost all the pinecones and mushrooms were taken already), so we also brought along shashlyk (shish-kebabs).

Matthew was so proud of his pinecone that we didn't have the heart to tell him it was one of the ones the squirrels had already gotten to and eaten all the nuts out of.

Even though we didn't find a lot of nuts, we still had a great time as a family walking through the beautiful stand of trees.

Even though the nuts were all gone, we still got a demonstration of the way T people gather the nuts.  Either they take a log and beat the tree with it ...

... or, if they're more of an enterprising type, they might make themselves a wooden mallet.  Either way, the key is to pound on the tree (don't worry, tree-huggers, it doesn't hurt the tree!) and get the top shaking hard enough to make the cones fall.

Anyway, it was a great day, and the cones we did manage to find were delicious!  Plus, we had fun together, which was the main goal of the day.

More exciting news on the pine nut facility coming up next week, so be sure to come back!