"Putting Up" (Preserving)

[jcat]

The main problem with the walnuts is that if you just leave them lie you have to dig up too many little trees. I haven't seen a squirrel in our town in a couple of years, though there are several around the school I work at. The mice love walnuts, but I don't want to encourage them.
Our walnuts were small last year, but this year they're huge.

 

[Winchester]

I think the trees go through cycles, where one year, they're just so-so and the next, they're "Wow! Where'd they all come from!?" We let them go because I don't want to deal with them at all. So we wait til they're all down, then rake them into a pile, throw them into the wheelbarrow and take them up to the compost pile. The squirrels go there to grab them. The tree is the last to leaf out in the spring and the first to lose its leaves in the fall, at least around here.

My parents were big black walnut fans and Mom made everything with walnuts: cake, ice cream, taffy, fudge, brittle. She and Dad would travel throughout the area and harvest all the walnuts they could find. Dad would store them in the garage until the husks dried, then husk and shell them. When I was younger, I had to help. I can remember many, many nights where Dad and I would sit at the kitchen table, shelling out walnuts. It was quite the task. He always said he didn't have to worry about me eating them all; I hated them then, too.

When we bought our land and were figuring out what trees we wanted to plant, I wanted a black walnut tree. My dad was shocked that I would want one, but I think that it was because of the memories more than anything. It's a beautiful tree. And black walnut wood is very valuable.

OT: We planted a young oak tree a few years ago. It's really grown into a pretty tree now and it bears lots of acorns. Deer love acorns; they just love acorns. A lot of times at night, Mollipop will sit in the computer room window; sometimes she'll start to chitter. It's because a deer or two have come down to check out the acorn situation. Thanks to the deer, we have a young oak tree now, growing in what used to be the beginning of my moon garden; it's probably about 2-1/2 feet tall now....Rick is going to let the oak tree where it is for a few years; then he's going to transplant it. Oaks are beautiful trees, too.