A Smashing Good Time!

So far they have broken our gazing ball, put a major hole in the girls' plastic toy box, and scared us every time one has hit the garage roof. (They sound as loud as a gunshot) What I am talking about? Our walnuts of course.

We have three very walnut large trees, and we've had more nuts this year than in any previous. I've taken 7 wheelbarrow loads to the ravine, and filled a 20 gallon garbage can for my two aunts, Martha and Helen, who came to visit last week. Aunt Martha took the garbage can load, and we also filled the rest of her car trunk as well. She cracks walnuts every winter and was delighted to have them.

This got me thinking that I should try to save and crack some this winter myself. Lisa mentioned that black walnuts sell at the farmer's market for about $8/pint.

So in the three days since we loaded up Aunt Martha, we have once again filled the garbage can:


And a laundry basket:


And still have quite a few laying around:


Martha says to wait until the husks turn black before you try to remove them. Getting the husks off is not easy. After the nuts are husked, she then gets a big tub of water and throws the nuts into the water. Any nuts that float don't have any meat in them so she throws them away. She gets out the ones that sink and spreads them out to dry in her basement. She then cracks them as she watched TV at night.

I've been thinking about an easy way to husk the nuts. Many nuts drop right onto our driveway:


Those are best because then I can just use the automatic husking machine on them:


One pass and voila:





I think I should just rake them into two lines and run over them deliberately, instead of only getting those that land in the right spot by chance.



We'll see how far I get on this