Déjàlà: Delightful Fall Harvest

Failure is a bruise, not a tattoo.

Jon Sinclair

New Mexican Piñon (pinyon) pine cones, pine nuts in the shell, shelled pine nuts
2020 Season

It is that time of the year when the air is crisper – the sky is bluer – the days are shorter – the storms are stronger – and the darker nights are, somehow, more peaceful.

Working outdoors, I noticed numerous birds suddenly and increasingly busy in the nearby hills – my snooping reveals that this year’s pine nuts are finally ready to eat – these birds are here to splurge and gather. Beautiful bright blue Mexican Jays and darker blue Pinyon Jays are spreading piñon cones everywhere as they crack them open to reveal the tasty treasures inside, or hide them in various locations for future consumption.

Mainly found in the four corner states (Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico), the piñon pine is the New Mexico state tree. It seems to grow well around junipers. This week, as I was pruning off and discarding some nasty juniper mistletoes, I noticed that nearly every large juniper I was working on had a young piñon pine growing in its shade. These beautiful and fragrant trees will eventually tower over the much shorter junipers. As critters hide pine nuts to eat later, they forget many, which become seedlings in the continual cycle of a well-tuned nature.

New Mexico abundance, known for its many types of peppers

Big Jim farm – pepper heaven

Pine nuts are very high in nutritional value and fat (up to 50% of their weight is fat, rare in plant-based food). Small animals and birds cherish them as did the Native Americans early on. Today it is found in some of New Mexico’s cuisine, even in a special type of coffee blend, piñon coffee.

Love the gourds and squashes – rich in colors and textures

If you wait for the nuts to be ripe, the birds and other small critters will beat you to the harvest. If you harvest too much of them, animals reliant on this critical food source will be negatively affected. Early harvest of unopened green cones full of sticky sap means that you need a method to get rid of the sap while also waiting for the pine cones to open (through heat or time). About half of the pine cones will result in empty nuts, all this work for half the results. There are, of course, commercial plantations but I am only focusing here on gathering for personal use.

Wing on wing, red-tail hawk on windmill
On the reservation, they call them metal feathers

Common true harvesting technique is seldom discussed as it poses ethical questions. Many people steal from squirrel caches/middens – something no one likes to brag about. At first, many didn’t replace the stolen goods but eventually (and thankfully), people started to understand that if they replaced the stolen caches with a cheaper type of food such as sunflower seeds and corn kernels, the animals would continue to gather the more prized pine nuts another season. Instead of having trap lines these people have cache lines. It would take several years to develop a good one but imagine all that work of gathering, already done by these critters, very ‘cheap labor’ indeed!

Wine colored clouds, monsoon season

Church and wine-colored clouds

There is a local Facebook page for New Mexico and on it, several people boast of all the pine nut picking they have done this year. Nearly every time, someone will ask where they picked. No one ever answers that question truthfully. No one asks how they picked but reading the various comments, it is clear that most imagine that folks go out there and pick the pine nuts by hand, that no critter caches are involved. The only reason I know this is that Mike worked with the Navajos for several decades and they shared this key picking method with him.