What The Heck Am I Doing Here?

These people are Tibetan street traders in Beijing. I guess they are Buddhists. I consider myself a Buddhist but in the last few days I have been exposed to such extremes of Buddhism that my head is spinning and I had to take a day to clear my thoughts and reassure myself that my version of Buddhism (absolute simplicity) may not be orthodox but works for me. Elaborate ritual, though charming, is not for me, and neither is hyperintellectualism. My IQ isn't high enough for either version.
One of my pecan trees has dropped at least half of its leaves. One tree is still ebulliently green and one has some yellow mixed in. A few nuts have fallen. From now until I manage to get out of here and on the road I will be clearing up tons of leaves and bagging them for the farmers to take for mulch and cattle feed and picking up nuts to sell. I may get the Tree Shaker to come with his archaic piece of equipment to grab the trees and shake the hell out of them. My trees are enormous so the shaker doesn't work too well.