The conkers have come! Uneven as the weather has been, the chestnut trees have known it’s time to drop the chestnuts.

For old British schoolboys–like my father, who taught the sport to me– that means conker season has begun.

We found handfuls of conkers on New Haven Green after church and brought them home. There, we poked holes through them and strung embroidery thread (because we couldn’t find string) through them. Then we went out in the backyard and whacked them against each other and turned out to be pretty good at it.

We scored a few “around the world”s and remembered to say “No stamps!”

That night, one of the dogs got at the conkers declared the match a draw.

Keep dogs away from conkers. Horse chestnuts are poisonous, for starters (for dogs and humans). Whack safely.