NUTS

You may remember the post of the couple who have a mill that shells almonds. Well, I just got involved with the step prior to the shelling of almonds.

My neighbors Totò and Anna were working away on their terrace the other day. It seems Totò had just finished picking the almonds from his four almond trees that he has on his small farm near Caltebellotta. He and his son Vincenzo had gathered the almonds, and it took them two days to get them all.

They then bring them down in large bags, and let them dry out for a while. Then they take the soft covering of the almond and discard it, leaving the almond in the shell for the next step of the process. It was nice sitting with them on their terrace pulling off the fuzzy soft shells. The shells go onto the ground to provide potassium for the soil, and are raked up in the spring. The almonds are taken into town and sold.

The four trees produced probably a bit over 100 pounds of almonds, and I have no idea what that would sell for in town. I do know that it did provide quality time for Totò and Ann, and sometimes Vincenzo to sit and talk about the days events, their dreams for the future, and just to spend time silently together.

It took me back to summer in Mendon Center when the neighbor farmer asked my brother and I to clean a large bag of kidney beans. We gladly did it, as we were to be paid for our labor, and we sat out under the box elder tree in our yard and took off the coverings, cleaned out the stones and clumps of dirt, and rebagged the clean kidney beans. When the farmer picked up the finished product, he overpayed us, but said he did not want any more done. My father told us that he had asked us to do the work, because his own son, while complaining of being bored with the summer, refused to join the family during this special time of mindless work and important talk, and he wanted to use my brother and I as an example for him. Apparently the cleaned beans were worth much more on the market than the fresh harvested beans.

Anyway, it was good to be a part of the process, and to spend the time with Anna and Totò. Maybe next time I will pick the almonds, and will do it right. Fran and I picked almonds once on Paolo's farm, but we also picked them off the ground, and found the almonds from the ground were wormy, and we could not easily separate them. Oh well. It still made for another fine memory.