Swimming in Walnuts!

Good grief! In all the years we've lived at this house, I don't remember us ever being this overwhelmed by walnuts! We have two big, black walnut trees in our back and side yards and there are record numbers of walnuts being dropped to the ground on a daily basis. Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! all day and night! Every time the wind blows, Thunk! Thunk! Every time a squirrel scurries across a branch, Thunk! Every time a bird lands in the tree, Thunk! Will they ever stop falling?

Saturday, I started picking up nuts. Poor Sid nearly killed himself walking to the barn one morning when he stepped on a nut and it about rolled him off his feet, so he declared Saturday my picking-up-nuts-day! I got myself a five-gallon bucket from the barn and started gathering. When the bucket got full, I took it back to the barn and dumped the nuts in Tubby's swimming pool. Seemed like the best place for now. . . Seven buckets and 35 gallons of nuts later, Tubby's pool was heaping full and I hadn't even begun to make a dent in the piles and piles of nuts in our yard! Ugh! My back was aching and I couldn't have bent over one more time to pick up another nut, so I gave up for the day.

Now what in the world are we going to do with all these nuts? Apparently, husking walnuts is an especially dirty job that requires heavy duty rubber gloves and lots of patience. After I get all the outer husks off, then I'm supposed to plop the nuts in a bucket of water to clean off all the slimy goo. Then I'm supposed to rinse all the nuts and lay them to dry for a couple days on top of some screens in the backyard. Once they are dry, then it's time for cracking and shelling. Ugh again! I can already feel my fingers aching. Then after all THAT hard work, I'm sure Hubby will be thinking up all kinds of fabulous recipes for yummy treats that call for walnuts, so back to work I go again, baking in the kitchen. Sheesh!

Maybe I need to call a tree service and take care of those two pesky walnut trees now, before next years' crop starts to develop! A pretty pink dogwood and a magnificent weeping willow would look just beautiful in their place and they'd be a lot less work for my aching back!