Pine Cones

This, boys and girls, is a genuine, pure-T, real-live, Florida Pine Cone. Imported directly from the piney woods of the Florida Panhandle for your educational benefit.

You see, this past October, Beth was reading a story to Sawyer from his pre-school material. The story was called The Magic Pine Cone. So she asked if either of them knew what a pine cone was. Nope. No idea. Beth then googled "pine cone" and found this picture for them to color while she read the story. Sawyer took some artistic liberties, or maybe he just thinks pine cones really come in all the colors of the rainbow.

Mimi heard about this incident and determined that her grandchildren should be deprived no longer. So, in her latest package, she sent us a real live pine cone. The box had a few other gifts in it, too, but they were quite excited about the pine cone!

I, (Jason) on the other hand, grew up knowing a lot more about pine cones than I knew about pyramids. Our yard in Crestview covered almost an acre. I bet there were 50 big tall pines in that space. Once, when I was just a little older than Lee Anna is now, Mama offered me 10 cents each for all the pine cones I could pick up. She was thinking I'd find 15 or 20 and make a buck or two. I was a rich 4th-grader after that bountiful harvest of over 200 pine cones! We never had to google anything (not that we could have!) to find out what a pine cone looked like, but I did want to send some to the kids in Africa after that experience.