Fall harvest

By mid-September, the earliest walnuts were ready in the north of Beijing. Myles learned how to harvest walnuts while we were at our favorite restaurant in Huanghuacheng, Kui Po.

Usually walnut picking is done with a longer wooden pole, but for the lower hanging walnuts, the people at Kui Po use this metal bar with a cross piece to strip the nuts from the branches. It can also then be used to beat open the walnuts, separating the nut and shell from the outer skin. Needless to say, it was hard to tear him from this activity to eat his supper.








And as September turns to October, Beijing's country roads are often used not just as thoroughfares, but also as threshing floors. It isn't uncommon to come upon some harvested stalks spread across the road, the farmers nearby waiting for car traffic to drive over the crops.  After the cars do their threshing job, everything is swept up and separated. I know; Peter Hessler already wrote about this in Country Driving. In the previous two autumns, though, I have forgotten to take a picture of this process.



It was not nearly as much fun as beating walnuts with a pipe, but still we felt we were doing our part for the harvest.