It started Raining!

It was a beautiful day yesterday, nice and cool.  We started hiking down the hills looking for different pinecones and pods to start our pinecone wreaths when the downpours started! It was raining so hard and we got soaked.  Not only did the rain soak us, but it also soaked all the pinecones and our pine needles, pods etc.  When the pinecones get into humidity or get wet they close up and this makes it very difficult to choose the good cones from the bad cones, so our adventures came to an end!

Sorting and Counting Pinecones!

We have been counting our pinecones ALL day.  We have over 600 cones in all different sizes and have started the process of sorting them by sizes.  Now how does one size a pinecone?  Usually, you just stand it up and measure it that way.  That works for the most part until you come to the Coulter cones.  These cones don't grow perfect.  They grow sometimes on the tree trunk itself and also on the tree branch.  Literally attached to the branch or trunk until the cone breaks off and falls to the ground.  So the pinecone itself has an irregular shape to the bottom.  So we do our best to stand the cone up straight and grab the height as best we can!

Pine Cones-PineCones- PineCones!

We have also started a site just for our BIG pine cones..and it is www.bigpinecones.com.  This site is only for the Coulter Pine Cones and the Sugar pinecones.  No fluff and easy to understand we made this site so that it is easy for people who are only looking for the largest pinecones.

www.mountainpinecones.com is getting up to speed.  We are in the process of harvesting Lodgepole Pinecones, Coulter/Big Pinecones, Sugar Pinecones, Cedar branches, Manzanita branches, Jeffrey Pinecones, Fir Cones, Pinyon Pinecones and Ponderosa Pinecones.

We are also working very hard on our pinecone firestarters.  This is a great, fun but tedious project.  Each pinecone is cleaned and dried and glazed and then either dipped in our special fragranced wax or treated so as to give off colorful flames when burned.  Also, in production phase are our cinnamon pinecones.  We have formulated a very special Christmas fragrance and are sealing many pinecones with this wonderful fragrance.

Lots of work to do before the snow comes....

Working Hard to Find The Big Pinecones!

Yesterday we had high winds and scattered showers.  The pinecones were a little more difficult to find!  Especially with the high humidity the cones close up and it is very difficult to find them.  We chose some different slopes to look for the Coulter Pine trees on, but the slopes were so steep we could not make it back up the slopes with the heavy cones!  Oh well, off to go pinecone hunting again tomorrow!

Let's Find the Pinecones!

Welcome to our new site and our new blog!   I can't tell you how excited we are to get our site up finally.  Gathering, cleaning, selling, creating, and the whole retail pinecone business is a lot of work.  Currently we are in the process of gathering the rare, huge, beautiful Coulter pine cones.  We have found over 500 of them so far.  These pinecones are so rare, they are so hard to find but worth the effort when we finally find one!  Our blog will keep you up to date on our adventures, our ideas and all the fun we have in our pine cone world!