Reflections on the Sixth Week of Fall – Ah, Black Walnuts!

Walnuts Ready to Harvest

In mid October, my husband walked me to the garage, and a squirrel burst out of a leaf pile. Biting down on a black walnut fruit larger than its head, the squirrel dashed across the road in front of us and dove into leaves on the other side.

“That’s one nut I won’t get,” Spence said opening the garage door and handing me my swim bag.

Tossing the bag onto the passenger seat, I slid behind the steering wheel and started the engine.

He stepped back so I wouldn’t drive over his feet.

Backing out and heading up our dirt road, I visualized the eight walnuts he’d husked and left on the porch to dry. He hadn’t wanted the squirrels to get all the nuts this year.

In the rearview mirror, I watched his arms wave in the usual wacky, wild arcs signaling goodbye, stay safe, have fun.

Returning his farewell, I waved my arm outside the window and wondered if squirrels appreciated the rich, earthy black walnut flavor. Though I ate English walnuts daily, I hadn’t eaten a black walnut since I’d harvested ours in the fall of 2011. I would love to taste their wonderful richness again―if only they didn’t take so long to process. 

You’re retired. Make time.

What if my hands turn brown like they did before? My students thought I had some dread disease.

Wear rubber gloves and don’t tear a hole in them again.

But doing the intensive hand work might trigger an arthritis flare up.

Pace yourself. Work thirty minutes then rest.

Maybe I could, then the squirrels wouldn’t get all the black walnuts. Besides, my friend Diana endorsed walnuts in her Medical Insider article, “Walnuts are shaped like a brain―need I say more?”

The next afternoon, I dressed for walnut harvesting. I pulled on pants that I’d ruined leaning against a freshly stained deck railing. Next I added a dull yellow sweatshirt spattered brown from working on the 2011 harvest and an old red sweater that moths had ventilated. Finally, I grabbed my garden gloves and tracked down Spence on his office-sofa in the great room. “Do we have any bushel baskets I can use?”

He set his finger on a paper to mark his place. “Why do you need bushel baskets?”

“I’m going to hunt for black walnuts.” I pulled on my gloves.

He pulled his finger off the paper, walked to the boot tray, and slipped into his garden boots. “The tractor will work better. I’ll get it and meet you under Dad’s walnut tree.”

So, while he crossed the field, I walked along the road and checked for walnuts under the young trees that squirrels had planted. None. Was I too late? Had squirrels harvested all the nuts? I hustled to our rendezvous.

When the tractor rumbled to a stop under Dad’s towering walnut tree, Spence jumped to the ground. “Not many to harvest.”

I glanced at the grass, grown-past-mowing-height, to spot the round, yellow-green fruit that contained a walnut inside. None. I penetrated the grass and leaves with a laser focus. Walnut fruits. Bending to pick them up, I inhaled their pungent, lemony-ginger fragrance.

Harvesting Walnuts by Dad's Walnut Tree

We tossed walnuts, plunk, plunk, plunk, into the tractor bucket. Figuring we’d found all the fruit in the spot, I stepped away, felt a hard lump under my shoe, and reached down for another one laying camouflaged in the grass.

The wind gusted, separated fruit from the tree, and propelled them diagonally toward the ground. In case one came my way, I covered my head and listened for the landing thunk. Then I headed in that direction.

After we’d collected a half tractor bucket of walnut fruit, I drove the tractor around the garage to the gravel driveway, adjusted the gas lever to idle, and stepped on the pedal to set the brake. I’d planned to mash the fruit by driving my Subaru over them. But a glance at my soiled sweatshirt convinced me I didn’t want the brown pulp splashing my white car. I hopped off the tractor.

Spence rounded the garage. “Aren’t you going to dump the walnuts?”

“Would you spread them at the end of the driveway?” I glanced from him to the tractor. Brown garden mud. Brown pulp. Who could tell the difference? “Then drive over them with the tractor.”

He mounted the tractor and revved the engine. Tilting the bucket he inched forward spreading the fruit on the ground. When the last fruit fell, he tilted the bucket up then drove back and forth over the pile. Leaning over the side to see how to guide his giant nutcracker, he cracked the green husks and mashed the brown pulp. All but one of the hard black walnut shells stayed in tact.

With the fruit mashed, I needed different gloves and plastic buckets for the next step of separating the husk from the nut. I fetched rubber gloves, and Spence searched for two empty plastic buckets. We met back in the driveway.

Sitting on the gravel, I grabbed a mashed green fruit in both gloved hands, twisted off the husk and pulp, then dropped the nut in one bucket and the scraps in the other. Sunshine warmed my face, and pieces of gravel drilled into my bony butt.

I called to Spence, who’d disappeared into the garage to change the oil in his pickup. “Do you have a piece of cardboard I can sit on?”

Out of the garage came thumps, bumps, and “No. But I have a pine board.”

He brought me the board.

Standing, I positioned the board then sat. Hard but smooth. I could deal with that. I twisted the next fruit revealing a dozen wiggling, white maggots―each a third inch long (.8 cm). Having lain on the ground, most of the fruits would have acquired maggots. With the rubber gloves, I wiped as many maggots off the nut as I could and dropped it into the save bucket. Reaching for more fruit, I freed the walnuts from husks, pulp, and as many maggots as I could.

Spence finished changing the oil, backed the truck out of the garage which smashed a few more fruit, then took a test drive. When he returned, he topped the oil up and said, “Aren’t you done?”

The wind intensified and blew gray-bottomed clouds that looked like they’d been quilted in ripples. Chilled, I pulled off the rubber gloves and looked at my hands. No walnut stain. But the flesh around the metacarpal of my left thumb ached as if the tractor had rolled over it.

Time to quit for the day.

End Part 1

Removing Husks