National Pine Cone Reserve

When I was a kid growing up in Highland Indiana, every year my parents worked diligently in preparing for our parish's "Christmas Bazaar" where arts and crafts and all sorts of Christmasy goods were sold to raise money for the church and school.  My mom would work with the volunteer ladies who made crafts.  My father would work throughout the year in his workshop in the basement, sawing, coping, gluing, clamping, painting various pieces of woodwork (bird houses, paper towel racks, etc).  Most of the goods had a Christmas theme to them, and wreaths, holly, and pine cones were common-place.

So imagine my surprise when I ascended the hill across the street from my home, and found the drainage culvert up there FILLED with beer-can sized pine cones!  As I walked further along the hill-side, I found hundreds, if not thousands of pine cones; many wheelbarrows worth of pine cones.  If mailing goods was cheaper than it is (I recently mailed a very light package to Chicago, via slow snail mail, and the postage costs were almost as much as the contents of the package!) I would send mass quantities of pine cones back to Highland so the church volunteer ladies could craft them into various & sundry Christmasy goods.  Also, geography conspires against us.