“Mom, Mom, I found a fake egg!” Naomi called as she ran across the grass. Half a second later she had squeezed said egg and it was shockingly genuine, and dripping all over her fingers! Best we can figure it was a duck egg, laid by a confused duck under a tree not too far from the Avon River.

We had gone to Hagley park with two goals in mind. Firstly, the kids were excited to find a pile of leaves to jump in. This little gully caught the windblown leaves naturally, saving us the effort of collecting them.

My mission for the excursion was to collect more nuts. We discovered this tree last week and I really enjoyed the few I had gathered on a salad with the last of the garden’s cucumbers and tomatoes, and I wanted more. They’re a good deal of work to shell, but we have an abundance of time on our hands at the moment….. The shiny smooth nuts are addictive to gather, and I felt rich as I stirred them with my fingers, clinking against one another satisfactorily. I kept saying I was just about finished gathering, but then I’d spot another, and another, and I’d be scurrying to hoard them like an industrious squirrel. It was rather like trying to leave a blueberry field when the picking is really good but the containers were full….just this last handful….and this one too….and these are too good to pass up. Mom used to call, “come on girls, I don’t have enough money to pay for more than this!” Except these nuts were FREE!

Torrey pine, from the USA. It grows bigger pine nuts than the ones you can buy in the grocery store.