Limit Pan

In the Octobers of my childhood, I often carried the limit pan.
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What's a limit pan? Ask my Papa. He knows.
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When the time was right, after we finished supper and Dad finished his evening chores, but before sunset, we would hunt for hickory nuts. Of course, my father knew where to look,,,he knew a hickory tree from an elm or an oak, but did what we kids know? I learned to spot a hickory and several other species, too.
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Once the tree was located, we utilised the limit pan. The "limit pan" was an old, discarded loaf pan, once used for baking. Our goal each evening was to fill the pan, and that was the limit of nuts for that night's hunt, we went home. That's why Papa named it the limit pan.
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We were not the only ones looking for hickory nuts, often the squirrels would get to them before us. There were times when we just chalked it up to "being a bad year for hickory nuts".
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We rarely filled that pan...
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Lovely cool evenings (like tonight) remind me of the limit pan, and the way my Dad drives around the country "block", slowly, looking for nuts and wildlife, and maybe a nice sunset.
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At 50, I still love to ride in the truck with my Dad. He sees and notices new things every day, on the farm where he has lived his entire life.
It's a good way to live, making a simple thing like picking up nuts an adventure. Thanks Pops.