\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, the traffic was bumper to bumper on the way to Santa Fe.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was practically a traffic jam with so many people parked by the side of the road, they almost needed a traffic cop.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Obviously, the scene is along I-25, any day this month, as the pi\u00c3\u00b1on-picking ritual has arrived. The pi\u00c3\u00b1on crop, they say, comes once every seven years, and by the number of people who spread out sheets under trees and poke at branches, this year likely will produce a bumper crop. And I used to think a bumper crop referred to the way cars lined up along Rowe Mesa.<\/p>\n
Watching hundreds of people \u00e2\u20ac\u201d their cars and pickups parked haphazardly along the Interstate \u00e2\u20ac\u201d gathering pi\u00c3\u00b1on made us recall what a popular, and healthful activity it is. And it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a family occasion that brings memories.<\/p>\n
But first, you decide who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s taking advantage of whom in this (annual and actual) scenario:<\/p>\n
Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s say we Trujillos are traveling in northern New Mexico in the fall and espy a family selling pi\u00c3\u00b1on by the roadside. Notice how the smaller Zip-Lock bag always contains precisely a pound of the nutty stuff, whereas the larger bag holds exactly two pounds. And it really doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t matter what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inside the bags, be it cotton candy or lead pellets. Remember: A pound\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a pound the world \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcround.<\/p>\n
Imagine also that the couple agrees to buy two pounds. Now one big difference is that the wife \u00e2\u20ac\u201d let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s call her Bonnie \u00e2\u20ac\u201d likes to eat pi\u00c3\u00b1on raw; the husband likes it roasted. So she helps herself to handfuls all the way home, and then, and then, as we arrive, she still demands her half of what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s left.<\/p>\n
Is there any justice in this world? Can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t we surmise that the federal deficit, the wars that rage and the tanking of the economy stem from some people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s deliberate misuse of equitable distribution of pi\u00c3\u00b1on? Can we blame the Great Pinon Swindle on Obama?<\/p>\n
Sure, some reader might suggest that the husband in the transaction buy pi\u00c3\u00b1on already roasted. Nah! People who roast pi\u00c3\u00b1on invariably fail to turn off the heat until they see the insides turning brown, as soon as the pi\u00c3\u00b1on seems roasted, forgetting that those tender nuts continue to cook even after the heat is off.<\/p>\n
And that leaves the husband of the house with a pile of curiously flavored charcoal.
\nEven though Bonnie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s played that trick on me many times, I still enjoy taking her out to trek for those starvation nuts. Whence this name? You can eat a ton and still starve.<\/p>\n
If you ever see us Trujillos picking pi\u00c3\u00b1on, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll probably notice that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a long Bungee cord tied to the waist of our middle son, Diego, a hulking man with experience with pine nuts (note: I hate the way some people, who try desperately to follow rules of synonymania, call our beloved pi\u00c3\u00b1on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153pine nuts.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m using the term only once, under protest, just so non-New Mexicans will know what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m referring to).<\/p>\n
When our son was 2, about a dozen of us were invited to pick pi\u00c3\u00b1on in a large, enclosed, private ranch. The pickings were great.<\/p>\n
We competed. Bonnie and I took our pail around, comparing our gleanings with those of her sister Donna, and their parents. We wondered why the elder Coppocks\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 pail was so full, before realizing my in-laws had \u00e2\u20ac\u0153salted\u00e2\u20ac\u009d their pail with a bed of rocks, to raise the level of the crop.<\/p>\n
Someone suddenly asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Where\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Diego?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Amazing, but in our haste to fill our buckets, we completely forgot that we had brought our toddler along. And compounding the problem was that Daylight Saving Time had just ended, and we were facing the reality of early darkness, around 5:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
And like the inexperienced searchers that we were, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d trip over one another, crossing our own and one another\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s paths, with no hint of organization. One of the crew took a screwdriver and wrench to the horn of his pickup, assuming that the long-inoperable horn might somehow become fixed and get Diego\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s attention.<\/p>\n
We searched and hollered in the diminishing daylight. Donna remembered that we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d taken Ubba, our tiny dog, along for the ride.<\/p>\n
Well, Ubba had followed Diego the entire way, and Donna was able to make out the tiny paw prints. We guess that our toddler had committed a slight lower intestinal indiscretion and didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want the rest of us in on the secret. We were all reunited around the time darkness was setting in. Donna estimated that Diego had walked nearly a mile. There were many sighs of relief and tears shed.<\/p>\n
And that adventure gave rise to the idea of tethering Diego to us, even if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s now in his 40s and weighs more than 200 pounds.<\/p>\n
After our pi\u00c3\u00b1on party, we counted our pickings. Amazingly, three of the pails contained exactly 4,221 nuts. Ours, however, had 4,222.<\/p>\n
And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a difference of a pi\u00c3\u00b1on.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
Whenever someone is reported missing, crews go out to search for the person. If the searchers are inexperienced, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a likelihood that even some searchers themselves will become the searched for. Often, the lost or missing person is able to walk, sometimes getting even more lost.<\/p>\n
What if search parties were to use a couple of hot air balloons, of the kind we see at the Balloon Festival?<\/p>\n
Shot up high enough, wouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t they be visible from quite a distance? That way, the hiker, presumably ambulatory, might be able to walk to one of the balloons and be rescued there, in the manner that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s better to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153take Mohammed to the mountain than to take the mountain to Mohammed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 \u00e2\u20ac\u00a2<\/p>\n
As compelled as one might be to shop locally, we went ahead and gassed up on our trip to Albuquerque, where we bought gas for $2.10. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s about 53 cents a gallon cheaper than here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, the traffic was bumper to bumper on the way to Santa Fe.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There was practically a traffic jam with so many people parked by the side of the road, they almost needed a traffic cop.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Obviously, the scene is along I-25, any day this month, as the pi\u00c3\u00b1on-picking ritual has arrived. The pi\u00c3\u00b1on crop, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1417"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1418,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1417\/revisions\/1418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}