Leave It To A Retired Fireman

There are a lot of pecan trees in Dallas City Parks. Irving has their share of them too! In fact, it's hard not to find a pecan tree on public property in Texas, let alone private land. The point being, yesterday a retired fireman with his dog, allowed me to take a picture of a very neat gadget he was using to pick up pecans.

Over the years about this time you can see people with bags stooping over and picking up pecans. Back breaking work, no? Well, this contraption saves all that and is actually a neat invention.  Keep in mind that I only discovered this invention yesterday, today I saw two more people picking up pecans with home made gadgets. Until yesterday, seeing people use tools to pick up pecans had never been witnessed before.  One was as simple as a Campbell soup can on the end of a broom stick. Of course, you never see things like that until you discover something neat. Then you find out that there are all kinds of home-made contraptions. Some, of equal ability. Some,not so equal.

The way it works: You roll it across the ground. The wires seperate when they hit a pecan shell. The pecan drops into the wire and then returns back in its normal shape. To emply, seperate two wires with your fingers and shake into the bucket. Dang. Why didn't think of that?

What separates this neat invention from the others home-made or not, is the fact that you net only pecans. No leaves, no sticks, no rocks, The fireman had a 5-gallon painter's can nearly half full when he showed me how the contraption worked.