Walnut Update

Remember when I won the walnut war against the bluejays? My reward was a wagon full of walnuts that were sitting in the barn yelling at me to do something with them before they were wrecked. So on Sunday, I got after it.

Here is my step-by-step guide to dealing with walnuts - and remember - this is MY guide - other people may have different guidelines and they are probably way easier, but this is my own little thing that works - or has worked for me on a small scale. If I were dealing with over a thousand little buggers I might get some proper equipment, but right now this is fine for a "family-size" pile of nuts.

When you pick the walnuts some of the husks are still sort of greenish and some are already starting to breakdown and turning black. Give them all some time to breakdown more (like a week or two), but don't let them sit in water. If you're squeamish, you might not like to see this part. There are tiny little worms that live and eat in the outer husks and help do the decomposing work. That's why the bluejays like them. They will be all over the place, don't get grossed out, it's the circle of life - deal with it.

1. Get your nuts out of the barn. Find a sunny spot to sit, and prepare yourself to take the husks off. Wear old clothes, maybe some gloves, maybe a bucket of warm water to rinse the walnuts in. This takes way longer than you think. 

 2. Start to take the husks off. Most of them will fall right off, they are pretty rotten and inky so you can almost squeeze the walnut right out.

 See!

3. Rinse most of the gunk off while still outside, then bring the nuts inside to the sink for a little scrubbing. I want them to look pretty so I do this little extra step so that people will think my walnuts are beautiful. Other people don't care - but I grew up watching Martha Stewart, so there are extraordinary measures that I have to take... I just have to.

4. Lay the little suckers out on the counter until they dry. If you don't do this, you can get moldy walnuts that taste like crap. If you make sure they are thoroughly dried - they will last for a year or two. These won't last that long because we will eat them all up. See how pretty they are. 

Me vs. Birds - I win!

We have a huge old black walnut tree at the farm. It's awesome, in fact so awesome that we got married under it one time. 

Here's what it does that is also awesome - it makes WALNUTS!!! But, after a number of years I've come to learn a couple of things about what goes on at the farm and around the walnut tree when I'm not looking. 

When the walnuts get ripe (or ready, or whatever) in September, I have a really really little window of opportunity to get outside and get the walnuts before the blue jays (Stellar's Jays) get ALL OF THEM. I don't like these birds very much, and it's mostly because they are super greedy little fuckers and every year take all the walnuts off the tree and off the ground and away to some undisclosed location AND THEY DON'T EVEN EAT THEM! From what I can tell, they only care about the little worms that in the outside husk of the walnut and they don't even eat the walnut. ( I also don't like them because the bully all the other birds at the bird feeder! They suck in so many ways!)

In past years, they have cleaned me out completely! So, now, I watch the tree - looking for action. As soon as the blue jays start getting all peck peck pecky at the walnuts as they start to brown up on the outside - I have to get out there in a hurry and get my share. On Saturday I saw them - three of them - out there starting to get excited. So, on Sunday, while the skies opened up and rained all over me, I spent the morning with the fruit picker reaching for walnuts. I got a bunch - I thought it was nice of me to take all the ground, low hanging and medium high walnuts - and I left the high up ones for the freaking birds. That seems nice - not that the birds would do that for me. I'm just nicer than they are. Assholes!

Oh, and I'm not clear that the fruit picker is the best answer for picking walnuts, but it's all I had. Yay! Walnuts for us!

Last thought: I keep wondering if some day I'll be walking around on the property and stumble upon seven million walnuts - whole - with a sign written in blue jay that says "Suzy - EAT ME!"