Always Keep Eyes Open, And Your Cup Empty. You Never Know Who You’ll Meet.

Yesterday, an orchard of some type caught my eye as I was driving outside of Waco, Texas on a narrow country road.  I'd never seen an orchard with such tall trees before, so I had to figure out what it was. I pulled my Toyota to the side of the road and got out to take a closer look.  About 30 seconds later,  a farmer comes rolling through the shady orchard atop his blue tractor, as he was probably just making the rounds of the orchard perimeter.  I asked him about the orchard, told him I was from Oregon, and that we are accustomed to seeing fruit orchards with much smaller trees or smaller nut trees like Hazelnuts. As he stared up at the tree canopy in his blue jeans, work boots, and sweaty v-neck white t-shirt,  the friendly old-timer proceeded to inform me about how the pecan crops wasn't that great this year, how the rain impacted the growing season, and explained how they rig up a 150-horsepower machine to the trees called 'the shaker' to shake the nuts off. He reached down and picked up a couple of fallen pecans, and cracked them open with his bare hands like he'd done it a million times before, to show me the fruit and how some

were damaged this year. It was a great and informative 5 minutes of my day indeed. At the end of our swapping info about Oregon nuts and his orchard, we shook hands and introduced each other by name. His name was Duck. Farmer Duck. If your travels take you through Northern Texas, stop by and say hello to Duck. He'll be out on his tractor or in the shade of his pecan orchard observing the fruit of his labor, just like he's done for the past 50 years.