Even when it hurts.
I have 6-1/2 walnut trees in my yard. The 1/2 tree is right on the edge of the lawn and half of the walnuts fall into the pond. The number of walnuts the trees produce vary greatly from year to year. On good production years the walnuts are a nuisance when it comes to mowing the grass. Unless I pick up the hundreds of walnuts, the mower blade gets a real beating and half of the nuts get pressed into the ground from the mower tires.
Last year with the late frost/freeze we had NO walnuts. However, we had a good spring this year with no late frosts. Early on I could see there were going to be a lot of walnuts. Thinking that I would plan ahead, I talked to my neighbor, Caleb T. and asked him if I could hire his kids, ages 12, 10, and 8 to pick up the walnuts before my weekly mowings. I said I would pay them 5 cents a walnut. I thought really hard about what I should pay the kids. After all, I didn't want to take advantage of them. Some mental calculations indicated that at $0.05 per walnut, a thousand walnuts picked up would cost me about $50. Heck, I could afford that to get them out of my yard.
So, after getting permission from the father, I talked to the kids and offer them the job of picking walnuts at a nickel a piece. The poor, naive kids gladly accepted my offer. "Snicker, snicker" on my part.
Roland (Rol_P) was coming to visit around the end of September so I told the father of the kids, Caleb, that he could bring the kids over and I would pay them up to date. I thought Roland would get a kick out that. So, on the appointed day, Roland showed up and Caleb brought his family over with an accounting of the number of walnuts the kids had picked.
Well, we all had a good laugh when I paid out over $150 to the kids. Roland had an especially wide grin on his face the entire time.
Then October hit. I was surprised to see the kids taking walnuts out of the yard by the wheelbarrow fulls. Their Mom would get this silly grin whenever I looked over and she would rub her fingers and thumb together. "Hmmm", I wondered, what is going on with these walnuts.
Last weekend Caleb brought the 12-year-old over to sight in the 7mm-08 the boy is going to use to hunt deer with for the first time this year. When I went out to the shooting bench to see how they were doing, I couldn't walk across the lawn without stepping on a walnut on each step. It felt kind of treacherous for an old guy like me to be walking on all of these round things. After seeing how well the shooting was going, I told Caleb that I planned to mow on Wednesday.
The next couple of days, I was surprised to see the twelve-year-old driving a lawn tractor with a trailer back and forth. They were taking walnuts out of the lawn by the trailer load! Since Caleb and I are leaving tomorrow for our trip to Montana, I stopped by their house yesterday morning to take a glance at the walnut tally sheet before I went to the bank to get money for the trip and to pay the kids. I gulped when I saw the sheet.
Well, the three kids came over this afternoon with the tally sheet and their Dad. Since the last pay out at the end of September, the new count was over 13,000 walnuts. This afternoon, I paid out over $640 to the three smirking kids. My total cost for season was over $800 to have the kids pick the walnuts from 6-1/2 trees.
I do have to say that the kids were very impressed with the new, crisp, $100 bills.
Living and Learning,
Dan
I have 6-1/2 walnut trees in my yard. The 1/2 tree is right on the edge of the lawn and half of the walnuts fall into the pond. The number of walnuts the trees produce vary greatly from year to year. On good production years the walnuts are a nuisance when it comes to mowing the grass. Unless I pick up the hundreds of walnuts, the mower blade gets a real beating and half of the nuts get pressed into the ground from the mower tires.
Last year with the late frost/freeze we had NO walnuts. However, we had a good spring this year with no late frosts. Early on I could see there were going to be a lot of walnuts. Thinking that I would plan ahead, I talked to my neighbor, Caleb T. and asked him if I could hire his kids, ages 12, 10, and 8 to pick up the walnuts before my weekly mowings. I said I would pay them 5 cents a walnut. I thought really hard about what I should pay the kids. After all, I didn't want to take advantage of them. Some mental calculations indicated that at $0.05 per walnut, a thousand walnuts picked up would cost me about $50. Heck, I could afford that to get them out of my yard.
So, after getting permission from the father, I talked to the kids and offer them the job of picking walnuts at a nickel a piece. The poor, naive kids gladly accepted my offer. "Snicker, snicker" on my part.
Roland (Rol_P) was coming to visit around the end of September so I told the father of the kids, Caleb, that he could bring the kids over and I would pay them up to date. I thought Roland would get a kick out that. So, on the appointed day, Roland showed up and Caleb brought his family over with an accounting of the number of walnuts the kids had picked.
Well, we all had a good laugh when I paid out over $150 to the kids. Roland had an especially wide grin on his face the entire time.
Then October hit. I was surprised to see the kids taking walnuts out of the yard by the wheelbarrow fulls. Their Mom would get this silly grin whenever I looked over and she would rub her fingers and thumb together. "Hmmm", I wondered, what is going on with these walnuts.
Last weekend Caleb brought the 12-year-old over to sight in the 7mm-08 the boy is going to use to hunt deer with for the first time this year. When I went out to the shooting bench to see how they were doing, I couldn't walk across the lawn without stepping on a walnut on each step. It felt kind of treacherous for an old guy like me to be walking on all of these round things. After seeing how well the shooting was going, I told Caleb that I planned to mow on Wednesday.
The next couple of days, I was surprised to see the twelve-year-old driving a lawn tractor with a trailer back and forth. They were taking walnuts out of the lawn by the trailer load! Since Caleb and I are leaving tomorrow for our trip to Montana, I stopped by their house yesterday morning to take a glance at the walnut tally sheet before I went to the bank to get money for the trip and to pay the kids. I gulped when I saw the sheet.
Well, the three kids came over this afternoon with the tally sheet and their Dad. Since the last pay out at the end of September, the new count was over 13,000 walnuts. This afternoon, I paid out over $640 to the three smirking kids. My total cost for season was over $800 to have the kids pick the walnuts from 6-1/2 trees.
I do have to say that the kids were very impressed with the new, crisp, $100 bills.
Living and Learning,
Dan
must have been a bumper crop this year 
