Fall 2012 Pinyones

For me, fall is a time of beginnings. As the leaves on the trees begin to change,  and the canyon abounds in blooming rabbit brush, I like to start new projects. For one thing, I’m posting on my blog again.  Summer was a bust for the blog. I was in Colorado, Northern California, and on Whidbey Island where I participated in the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts summer residency once again and decided to take a post-grad class in creative non-fiction. Usually I’d be back in the classroom teaching, but I decided to move on from there. I’m still adjusting to this new way of life. It’s not as easy as it looks!

I am doing research for my new novel featuring the same characters that are in The Butterfly Basket. Its current title is Turning Gold. This book deals with the subject of racial prejudice and takes place in the fall.

As part of my research some friends came over with long sticks and we used them to knock pinyon pine cones out of a tree. The Kawaiisu did this when the cones were still green and closed so the pine nuts would still be inside. Luther Girado, a Kawaiisu elder,  fondly remembers the camping trips up into the mountains where his family would spend several days gathering cones and roasting them in a fire. When the entire cone is roasted it opens and the nuts can be removed. The people were able to eat these nuts and/or sell them. It’s a lot of work to gather them as I found out, but a lot of fun too. They are very nutritious and are still gathered and eaten today.

We decided to try roasting them in a barbecue grill. The conditions are too dry for an open fire, and I definitely did not want to be the cause of yet another wildfire (we’ve had two here this summer). So we put the green cones in an old aluminum turkey pan and set it on the coals. It worked. The cones opened and we ate some of the nuts.

A Miwok woman, Lori, was with us and she said her family waited until the cones were mature and open and then knocked them out of the tree. This would be easier, but many nuts would probably already have been consumed by animals such as ground squirrels. In Sand Canyon these cute little rodents are everywhere. One of many who live in burrows in my yard stole a couple cones from me and enjoyed her treat on our patio.

Single leaf pinyon pines do not bear cones until they are 35 years old. It takes 150 years for one to reach a height of 28 feet. So when a pinyon forest is burned it will take more than a century to regenerate. Unfortunately we had a big wildfire to the east of the canyon last summer that burned the pinyon forest along the Pacific Crest Trail. We also had a fire at the mouth of the canyon that burned the historic house that once belonged to Cameron Dairy and was the fictional home of one of my characters.

Knocking pine cones out of tree

Roasting the green cones to get them to open

Sticky sap on cones