Oh yes! How could I forget. We also used pine cones as starters for the fires when we lived close to them. I tried to harvest some pine nuts freshly but it is so much work and we do not have a tradition for pine nut harvesting, so I did not actually know what I was doing. The outer shell is so hard to open, there must be an easier way to open them without destroying the delicate nut! But alas.
Yes, right! I feel people are not slowing down enough, in fact, people are speeding up! And they live past all the beauty that nature has to offer.
Thank you so much for the thoughtful response!