Nuts!

Our house sits in a grove of black walnut (Juglans nigra) trees. They surround us on three sides and overhang the roof.

This year the walnuts have produced a bumper crop.  Walnuts rain down on the roof and roll, bumping down the roof to hit the ground, They litter the patio.

They make the welcome mat a hazard. (Step on a newly-fallen walnut and you could land on your butt.)

The nuts pile up in corners of the entrance to the house.

As the photo above shows, walnuts come in a green hull that slowly disintegrates into a black mess. Within the mess is the walnut. Anyone who would harvest walnuts must devise a way to remove the hull without staining one’s` hands. Walnuts land on the driveway, where they get run over. This, at least, separates the hull from the nut, but also stains the driveway with blotches of black.

Back in the years when I collected the walnuts for eating, I piled them in the driveway and ran the car over them repeatedly to flatten the hulls. Then I picked the nuts out of the smashed hulls and filled the wheelbarrow with them. Finally, I ran water to clean off the hull residue.

Squirrels are doing their part to dispose of this year's crop. Before they bury the nuts, though, they shuck off the hulls. The rock wall by the front flowerbed is our squirrels’ favorite hulling station.

Once I would have been delighted by this year’s bumper walnut crop. I love the flavor of black walnuts in cookies, cakes, and ice cream, and I was willing to work to extract the nutmeats. Now arthritic hands prevent me from cracking walnuts’ hard shells (a hammer is required) and picking out the nutmeats. The nuts have become a nuisance, and I wish someone would come to collect them and take them away.

Copyright 2014 by Shirley Domer