Pickin' Up Pecans

Today was our first official day of Christmas break and we spent the morning picking up peacans at the farm. Pecans are bringing good money this fall and Kelly and I decided to pick up as many as we could to make a little extra money. In addition, we thought this was a perfect time to start teaching our girls about working hard to earn money. Kelly went hunting early so he was out there when the girls and I got there at 9:30. My dad showed us some of the trees that still needed to be picked up and we got to work. We gave Ava and Claire a bucket to share and we told them they could keep whatever money their bucket made. Ava worked very hard the whole three and a half hours we were out there. She did not complain, whine, or fuss...she worked! Claire worked for a little while, but found the fallen leaves more interesting. She was perfectly content running around the orchard and playing. Around 1:00, we had gotten all the scraps we could find and decided to break for lunch. We weighed how much Ava and Claire (with a little help from papa) had picked up, then loaded all the other pecans up and took them to town to sell.

Here is how Ava and Claire fared:


They picked up 18 1/2 pounds and we sold them for $1.60 a pound. They earned $30! Since Ava worked the entire time we gave her 2/3 of the money and Claire 1/3. Claire may still be a little young to understand the concept of working to get money, but Ava knew exactly what was going on and was very excited! She watched her pecans get weighed and kept asking her daddy how much money she made? You have never seen a girl more excited to receive money that she had worked for! Once we gave her the money we asked her what she was going to do with it. In true Walker fashion she said, "Save it"! Papa would be proud! We told her how good it was to save money in case she really needed it one day.

















It was a great day for our family! We got to spend a beautiful day together outdoors, we made a little money, and taught our girls some important lessons about hard work and saving money. Even though most of the morning was spent working, we did have a little time to play. Ava had been telling me all fall that she wanted to jump in a big pile of leaves. So, I took this opportunity to rake a HUGE pile of leaves and let she and Claire jump, throw, and fall in the pile! It was a great day!