I mentioned the other day that Mother and I picked up pecans in Dutchtown on one of our jaunts. As soon as we got home, she dug out the Rocket Nutcracker that’s been cracking Steinhoff pecans for better than half a century. She clamped it in the vise on Dad’s workbench and went to digging in the basement food cupboard he built at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Before long she found the very same cigar box and nut pick he used sitting his recliner, watching TV and filling jar after jar with nuts.
Metal fatigue caused handle to break
The metal fatigue from cracking thousands of nuts eventually caused the handle to break, but that didn’t stop Dad. He just welded the handle back on.
You can buy one that looks just like this one except that it has a wooden handle at the end.
She’s ready for more
I figured cracking and picking out the nuts would keep her off the street this weekend, but, no, she got them all cracked and picked out in about four days. She’s ready to go out picking up more.
Pecan cracking photo gallery
Here’s a gallery of photos of Mother hard at work cracking pecans. Click on any image to make it larger, then click on the left or right side to move through the gallery.
Thank you so much for sharing this. My parents had one of these nutcrackers and I have wanted one for years and didn’t know how to get one. I have ordered one now and am anxiously awaiting its delivery.
YOur mother is amazing. Your posts about her are always among my very favorite!
Time for pecan pie!!! Cute story.
Ken, Uncle Fred Robinson’s place had a whole line of pecan trees along his drive. Also, there were a lot of pecan trees along Ramsey Creek, just north of Scott City. Our whole family would visit a number of locations where pecans were prevalent and my dad would throw parts of broken branches up into the trees to knock loose more pecans. We would spread old blankets and bedspreads on the ground around the trees to aid in locating the pecans that fell. Then when we got back to the house, we spent days cracking and picking.
Buchheit’s in Jackson carries that style of nut cracker. We have one that came from a yard sale.
My dad also cracked pecans and picked them all winter. He put them into coffee cans and there were many cans for mother, my sister, brother and me. I miss those MO pecans – store pecans are a far cry from those!! After the cracking and picking, mother put the shells around her roses. She had beautiful roses as a result.