Black Walnuts

Our farm has many black walnut trees.

These trees are usually the last trees to sport their leaves in the spring.  Spring also displays long, greenish flowers forming the small, green balls.

As the growing season progresses, these green balls continue to expand into large green balls - the walnut fruit. These walnuts tend to fall from the trees slowly, many of which remain attached to the tree branches long after the leaves have fallen.  (The walnut trees are also the first of any tree to lose their leaves in the fall.) Yet another example of a tree that seems to ornament itself. 

As the green fruits gather on the ground, the green covering or husk, darkens to a very deep brown, almost black and become very dry.  Those that fall into the roadway are regualrly run over by either pickup, 4-wheeler or tractor resulting in the outer husk cracking and separating from the actual nut.  This is a good thing as trying to remove the husk by hand results in brown-stained hands only to be removed by many washings.  (By the way, black walnuts are used for natural dyes.) The vehicle trick is so much more desirable.  That is, if your goal is to collect the balck walnuts for their nutmeats. 

Collecting the windfall on the ground in the roadway is definitely the best option for collecting a lot of nuts easily and quickly.  Otherwise, we are looking for green balls that have fallen into the tall, green grass of the pastures - not as easy....

And, timing has to be perfect.  If I wait too long to collect the walnuts, I am usually collecting inferior or even empty nut shells - the squirrels beat me to the best.

After collecting, we then take our handy-dandy nut cracker to break the hard inner shell of the nut exposing the pure white nutmeats.  I, again, am not a fan of black walnuts, their flavor is super strong.  But, collecting enough to add a small amount to recipes calling for walnuts is one of those bonuses of nature and hard work resulting in saving money and so much flavor.

I was told that in the 'olden' days, women would collect the walnuts to sell in order to pay their taxes.  I would have to collect an outrangeous amount to pay our taxes today...which reminds me...

taxes are due ....collecting bags anybody?