This Morning

This morning I headed out to the yard.  While not the most untypical activity of a Saturday morning, I knelt down and began gathering the product of our last producing plant of the year.   Walnuts.  As I gathered to nuts, some still had the husks covering the cases, others were clean down to the shells.  Some had been split open, and during the course of my recovery, I found the cause why.  Birds.  A few small patches under the tree left the evidence that they were there, a few feathers and bird droppings.  This made me think about my old BB gun, in a long term grid down situation, adding some birds to the stew pot would be nice, and my .22 might be too loud, especially in the city.  I gathered about 2/3rds of a bucket full, and plenty more are on the tree.  While our production was limited this year, mostly due to our own inexperience, I have been glad to have had this experience this year.  I wanted to plant a fall garden this year, but by the time I got around to planning it, it was too late to plant before the next frost and snowfall.