Harvest Time

It's Peanut Harvest Time!

That's right, if you live in North Carolina, it's time to get at harvesting those peanuts. We live surrounded by fields and the last few days, the farmers have been busy, busy, busy. Used to be that those fields were used for tobacco, alternating with corn and cotton with the occasional soybean crop to keep things interesting. Now, it's corn, cotton, soybean and peanuts.

The corn crop went to heck this year because of the drought, so those fields were pretty much a waste. But at least the guy who farms around us has a pretty good crop of peanuts. I've already seen one truckload delivered to the peanut factory down the road. (Their warehouse burned down a couple of years ago, so they have to store the peanuts in some old warehouses previously used for tobacco, but it seems ot be working out for them.)

For those who have never seen what this process looks like, here are a few pictures. Basically, the farmer turns up the soil around the peanut plants to expose the roots where the peanuts are growing. Then, once that's all done and they dry out a bit, he comes back to harvest the peanuts, which are really not nuts at all, but a member of the legume family, like soybeans.

Once they're harvested, they fill up dump trucks with the peanuts and drive them off down the road to be roasted and processed at the local peanut factory. There's even a store, Houston's, in Dublin where they sell various peanut products ranging from your traditional peanuts-in-the-shell to peanut brittle. Sadly, I developed a late-life allergy to peanuts so I have to forgo all this goodness. :( But my husband still enjoys them.

Halloween Is Near!

And of course as if you didn't already know that I'm a complete nut, I've been working on our Halloween family. They're all duded up for the holiday and once October is over, I'll be getting them ready for the next round of holidays, as well. Our UPS delivery person gets a big kick out of these and takes pictures as I change their clothes appropriately for the season, so I guess I'm not the only nutter around.

It takes so little to make me happy.