I thought we were done picking things for the year after the wild blueberry session on Mt. Seymour a few weeks ago. But last Sunday afternoon we found ourselves heading out to West Vancouver to collect chestnuts.
The Boy Scouts planted horse chestnut trees along 17th Street in 1934 to commemorate the visit of Lord Baden-Powell. The trees are beautiful and, happily for the kids, productive. There were thousands of chestnuts littering the ground. Some were still in their spiny green shells, sometimes two to a pod.
Leif filled the pockets of his hoodie, Saskia hunted for the tiniest baby chestnut ever, and Ariana packed her bag to the point where she struggled to cart it back to the car.
We took sacks of chestnuts home, where another benefit quickly became clear: they're the cleanest, tidiest bits of the outdoors my kids have ever brought into the house. No stains, no smell, no detritus. Just smooth brown nuggets scattered everywhere.
(Flickr photo set here.)
i enjoy chestnut collecting myself! i don't think it's something i'll ever outgrow...
are you going to roast some of them?
Posted by: slydi | Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 10:09 AM
Your chestnuts may be clean now but can become nasty when left lying around too long. I found a mess of chestnuts when I got to the bottom of our toy box one year.
Posted by: Diana | Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 02:26 PM
we have a big chestnut tree on the property... but beyond picking them, i don't know what to do with them. did you roast them? or will they just look pretty in the house for a while?
Posted by: leslie | Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 04:16 PM
Don't roast them. They're horse chestnuts, so they're completely inedible. Even squirrels only like the embryo, which is why you'll see chestnuts with a little bit eaten out of the side. They'll only eat the whole nut when times are very tough.
Posted by: The Other Pete | Wednesday, October 15, 2008 at 05:34 PM
They're great for making roads for 'dinky' cars...
Posted by: Hilary | Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 07:10 AM
The Other Pete's right, horse chestnuts are inedible. As for regular roasted chestnuts, I tried them once a few years ago at Granville Island and was sorely disappointed.
The kids have been playing with them for days. Yesterday Ariana tipped over a large gift bag of chestnuts at the top of the stairs, and the sight of several hundred chestnuts cascading down an entire flight of stairs was something to behold.
Posted by: Martina | Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 01:26 PM
Just last weekend we went for a walk around our neighborhood and collected a bunch of them as well. I have no idea what to do with them so I put them on our nature table. It's nice to have a piece of fall inside our warm home.
Posted by: Sheri | Thursday, October 16, 2008 at 01:49 PM
Horse chestnuts are for playing Conkers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conkers
Posted by: Bart | Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 11:19 AM
Too bad - your family just missed the World Conkers Championship: http://www.ffconkers.org/championnats-monde-conkers-en.php
Posted by: Bart | Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 11:22 AM
My favourite paragraph from that last link:
"The championships were briefly threatened when sweltering summer temperatures caused horse chestnut trees to drop their conkers early. Those that fell were deemed too small for competition status, and even led to the creation of a black market in conker specimens."
Posted by: Martina | Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at 02:22 PM
What great ideas! I'm all for walking the wee ones to wear 'em out and then having things from nature's bounty for play and creating... Have a feeling conkers will be popular with my three nutty little boys. ;-)
Posted by: Karen | Saturday, October 25, 2008 at 08:56 AM
I love this post. Especially the story behind it. We'll have to do this for one of our "outings" next year!!
Posted by: Mary Smith | Sunday, October 26, 2008 at 10:37 PM