Pawnee's Are My Favorite
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I love pecans, I love Texas pecans, and I love the Pawnee variety the most.
https://www.berdollpecanfarm.com/5-LBS-PECAN-HALVES/productinfo/526/
2021 crop is available, I'm gonna get some for us here at home and some to be sent to friends. These folks at Berdoll have been wonderful to deal with. I didn't know until just searching their website, but it looks like they have retail locations all over Texas.
https://www.berdollpecanfarm.com/location.asp
Regardless, if you like cracking & eating or just digging into a bag of already peeled pecans, try some Berdoll Pawnee pecans. They're buddhaman approved!
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@buddhaman The house we lived in Palacios before my dad passed away had fifteen pecan trees on the property. All were grafted but originally were from the Inez area the previous owner transplanted from the river bottom there. I don't know the variety they were grafted to but they started as natives nor do I know how grafting works. Three of them made paper shell and the others I want to say were Mahan whatever that is I just know they were large and easy to shell. We had people come from all over to pick up pecans one couple drove all the way from Damon Texas and picked up six hundred pounds in two days. It was different every year and we had years where they barely made any and insects got them. Lots of maintenance to keep them healthy and downed limbs galore when they get heavy. I think it was hurricane Rita that really tore the trees up they were so heavy with pecans they just broke off but they do that without a hurricane blowing. Self pruning I guess. My sister gave us ten pounds of cleaned pecan halves from the pecan house in Cuero last Christmas we're still making stuff with them. I have three pecan trees here but they just don't get enough water some are dropping off right now but so far only empty shells.
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My dad loved pecans. One of my most enduring memories of him is a late fall day and he would be out in the garage with a college football game on the radio cracking pecans. He had a lever operated cracker that he would attach to his workbench with big c clamps kind of like a reloading press only this was for pecans. He would crack a paper grocery sack full of them and then bring them inside to pick the cracked shell off and make a pile of perfect halves. My mom was a great dessert cook (mainly because my dad was a big dessert fan) and would use pecans in cakes and cookies. Her specialty, however, was pecan pie.
Perfect halves make a beautiful top layer but you also need smaller pieces to make a really good pie. I would watch her take those perfect halves and chop them up to get the smaller pieces. I asked her about this and she said it was her secret and not to tell dad.
Dad helped my grandfather plant about twenty pecan trees around my grand dads property down in the Rio Grande valley. My granny would go out and dig up some of that silty loam for a flower bed and after 6 months, grand dad would plant a pecan tree in the bed. Dad and his brothers and sisters watched this happen time and time again and decided on a plan that would solve the problem. Dad gathered a bucket of native pecans from the two huge trees that grew in granny's earliest flower beds. We planted them in coffee cans filled with dirt and kept them growing over that first summer. We always visited my grand parents on labor day so we could go white winged dove shooting in the valley. That year, our trunk was filled with pecan saplings riding in their coffee cans. We had to put the shotguns and shells in the back seat with my brothers and me.
We all planted those saplings around the edge of the property where they were sure to be watered when grand dad would irrigate.
My dad got a lot of pecan bud wood the next year and he and grand dad spent all of the trip grafting the saplings.
Those saplings grew up and so did I. I took my wife to visit granny (grand dad had passed away when I was in college) on our honeymoon. The trees were just in their prime then. While I was growing up, we always got a delivery from the railway express truck with bushels of grapefruit, oranges and later pecans from those trees.
Dad enjoyed grafting those pecans so much that he planted three trees in our suburban lot in Houston. The tree in the front yard was a grafted tree from a nursery. I think it was a Stuart. He had another idea for the two native trees in the back. Once they grew to about 20 feet tall, he cut off all of the major branches near the trunk one late winter. He grafted each branch with a different species of pecans. One one tree, we had Stuart, Mayhan, Chickasaw, Choctaw and other Indian names I have forgotten.
My brother bought the house from my parents when they retired to Georgetown and now he send us quarts of perfect pecan halves that he picks from those trees. We pay him back with a pecan pie from my mom's recipe every thanksgiving and a yam casserole from my wife's family with a pecan, butter, and sugar crust that has become one of our traditions.
The pecan, after all, is the State Tree of Texas and is a big part of my family's history.
Another time, I will tell you the story of an old Daisy pellet gun that we named: Squirrel Slayer
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@bigfoot I've driven by and walked amongst pecan orchards, I would think that they may have started native, off the Frio River near Concan. I love every bit of Texas and what Texas has to offer.
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@buddhaman I have a feeling the pecan trees here at Bigfoot were brought from DeWitt County by my dad. They aren't very old and we lost one several years back from lack of water the ones planted around the house have survived. I know one thing it's rare to see a squirrel around here just a few oak trees around the creeks.
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@shakeyhand my oh my, what wonderful memories and the making of history to come. You Texas folks are truly one of a kind. So natured and nurtured in tradition, family upbringing, and an honor in preservation of that lifestyle. I tip my hat to you @shakeyhand and to you @bigfoot and all other Texans on this forum. You guys help bring to light situations in life that matter and I, for one, am so grateful to read. Thank you.
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@bigfoot my Grandma had a couple of pecan trees on her property near downtown Houma. She and my 12 year old little brother got busted by the Houma Police Dept for illegal use of a firearm within city limits for shooting squirrels with a Benjamin Pump pellet rifle. She'd get so mad because the squirrels would eat away all the bark on the branch right before a cluster of green pecans, causing the branch to die and eventually fall on the ground. She was a determined lady and my little brother had an eagle eye.
The policeman's reprimand was directed mostly towards my brother, but my Grandma insisted that if anyone was going to jail, that it be her.
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@buddhaman Texans can be pretty windy if you know what I mean. I used to order lumber from Alamo Forrest and the salesman I talked to was a full blown Louisianna native. I can't spell his last name sounded like " Diddeay ". We talked about everything from where we were from to hunting and fishing. He quoted me a Cajun saying that basically translated to this...... You never know what's cooking in a fellows pot unless you lift the lid and take a look.
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@bigfoot Probably spelled Didier, but you're mostly right about people from Louisiana. A lot of talk inside them and somehow, have done most anything you can imagine. I don't think they are braggarts by nature, they just love to talk, and fish, and hunt, and cook, and eat, and party, and play cards, and ......
