I know the crop is over, but this challenge really intrigued me and I worked all evening on this lo and wanted to post it. Here is the journaling:<BR><BR><BR><BR>Chestnut (noun)<BR><BR>1. Any of several deciduous trees of the genus Castanea native to northern temperate regions, having alternate simple toothed leaves, and nuts that are enclosed in a prickly husk.<BR><BR>2. The often edible nut of any of these trees.<BR><BR>3. A moderate to deep reddish brown.<BR><BR>4. An old, frequently repeated joke, story, or song.<BR><BR> Our family folklore says that my grandparents first began enjoying fall picnics in Oak Glen in the 1930's. Given that the lifespan of the Chinese chestnut tree is upwards of 75 years, it's not impossible to imagine that this tree was already growing in this very spot when they spread their blanket here for the first time. Although we come to Oak Glen for the apples, cider and pie, we look forward to seeing the old chestnut tree too. It grows at our favorite picnic spot between the Snowline apple orchards, the rows of blackberries and the apple barn and cider mill. There beneath the spreading branches, we have eaten Grandma's potato salad studded with ripe black olives. We've made sandwiches of salami and Muenster squeezed between fresh buns and complimented by the pickled vegetables Mom picked up at the deli down the hill. We've dipped shrimp in cocktail sauce, chased sweat bees out of our cups of cider and long ago agreed that Dutch apple pie is the best choice for our dessert. Some years it was so cold that we could see snow on the peaks above us and were forced to huddle under our red-checked tablecloths to keep warm. Other years we've picnicked in tank tops and watched the flames and smoke of wildfires as they burned on nearby hills. My father ate under this chestnut tree many times before his death in 1975. My children played under the tree just this year while my mother and I reloaded our cameras and told them the old chestnut my Grandma loves to repeat: when you bite into an apple, better to find a whole worm than a half.<BR><BR>