Fall's foraging fun

A friend gave me a bag of black walnuts in the husk a couple of days ago. Today I husked most of them, the soft dark brown to black ones. There are online instructions that suggest driving on or stomping the husks of black walnuts to get them ready for removal. We have few enough that we just waited a couple of days and "peeled" the softened husks from the hulls, sort of like removing overripe peach fruit from the pit. There's a dozen or so still green so we'll let ripen some more and husk them in a few days or a week. Many of the husks had insect larvae so we'll be sure to clean the shells well before we follow our friend's advice and put the shells in the oven on a cookie sheet at 350℉ for an hour or ninety minutes. Then I get the "pleasure" of shelling the walnuts and, I hope, both of us [BH & I] will pick the nut meat. After that, we'll decide how many get stored in the 'fridge, in the freezer, or on the shelf. Since I much prefer my cakes and cookies without nuts, maybe some of the black walnuts may end up as Christmas presents to those whose taste runs counter to mine.

maple, not black walnut, tree in Autumn color

Photo by J. Harrington

While I was husking black walnuts, the Better Half [BH] was preparing the wild grapes and the rose hips we foraged from the Daughter Person and Son-In-Law's property today when we went to collect our tractor that they had borrowed. I'm told the rose hips and grapes will be combined with apples and magically turned into jelly. That seems eminently possible since a couple of weeks ago the BH returned with a bag of ripe elderberries.  They weren't great as a sole source pie filling, but were delicious when combined with apples in an apple/elderberry pie, enhanced with vanilla ice cream.

As further proof that we're reverting to our younger "back to the country" form,  after noting that somehow we've ended up with a bunch of sand burrs growing near our mail box, I poured the black walnut water, heavily stained with husk juice, onto the sand burr grasses to see if if helps kill that grass. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and I've read that the juice shouldn't be poured in the garden nor should it be added to compost.

Plain Advice

Jeff Gundy

Don’t be foolish. No, be foolish.
Each of these trees was once a seed.

Look down the road till it’s all mist and fumes:
Of course your journey is impossible.

It’s stupidly hot for September and yet here’s
an eddy, a gust, something to stir you

as the high leaves of the walnut are stirred,
as fine droplets touch you, touch the table

and the deck, no explanation, no design.
And beauty is like God, mystery

in plain sight, silent, hesitating
in leaves and the shadows of leaves,

in the carved fish painted and nailed
to the railing, in skeins of cloud

and searching fly and pale blue
scrim of sky and seas of emptiness

and dazzle, fusion and spin,
fire and oblivion and all that lies

on the other side of oblivion.

********************************************
Thanks for visiting. Come again when you can.
Please be kind to each other while you can.