The chestnuts are ripe and falling from their husks. The farm has 9 chestnut trees planted a few years after our arrival, some are Chinese and some are the Dunstan hybrid. The Dunstan hybrid is a blight resistant cross of the American and the Chinese chestnut. There is not a whole lot of difference between the taste, the Dunstans seem starchier to me. The Dunstans are ripe earlier and they are browner in color and somewhat smaller. Chestnuts are rich in the monounsaturated fats oleic acid and palmitoleic acid, known to lower LDL cholesterol, they’re rich in the B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin and niacin and a source of calcium, iron and phosphorous. This year was a very good year, the branches loaded and hanging on the ground. We took some to the market this week, and despite the cold rainy day and lack of market shoppers we managed to sell some. I kept imagining how well they could sell if we had a mechanism there to cook them and had a young chap to loudly chant- hot roasted chestnuts!!