Reflections - Walnut Snatcher

Baskets of Black Walnuts

The cats discovered the theft Monday morning, October 4. Sitting side by side by side on the hewn log table, they gazed through the window at the porch desk. Tails twitched. Ears swiveled. Ande whimpered. Eh eh eh.

If one of the brothers had acted that way, I would have suspected a butterfly or grasshopper. All three meant a critter like the mouse with a nest of babies under Spence’s printer or the gray squirrel that carved wood sculptures. I mentally rooted for the mouse because of our black walnuts. Mice don’t have the teeth to gnaw through walnuts. Squirrels do. 

Our venerable black walnut tree dropped fruit with each wind event starting late summer. Though plum size at first, I scooped up every lime-green fruit, fingered the bumpy husks, and inhaled their spicy fragrance. I stored the first nuts in an empty flowerpot on the porch desk. 

Fall came. The walnut tree dropped lemon size fruit. Spence and I crisscrossed the yard under the old walnut tree as if following the lines on a checkerboard. I stuffed the fruit into my picking apron. Spence dropped them into a five-gallon bucket. We transferred the fruit to a bushel basket and covered the bounty with newspapers to hide it from the squirrels. 

 I even lured others into snatching the walnuts away from squirrels. When our nephew Patrick came to haul away the old dryer, I bent to great-niece eye level and used my excited first-grade teacher voice. “Want to go on a walnut hunt?”

Addy, age six, whooped.

Amelia, age four, hopped.

Their grandma Cindy gave me a thumbs-up signal. “That sounds like fun.”

Chestnut-brown hair swaying, Addy leapt across the yard as gracefully as deer leapt over Spence’s garden fence. Searching for the camouflaged fruits in the six-inch grass tickled her sense of adventure. “I found one!” She snatched the fruit and tossed it into Spence’s five-gallon bucket or into the bushel basket her sister and I had fetched from the garage. Thunk. Addy bounded off for more. 

Cherubic Amelia pranced across the grass with her head bent and blonde curls bouncing. She lunged, grabbed a fruit, and dropped it into the bushel basket—never the bucket.

The walnut adventure didn’t hold Addy’s attention for long. “I want to go to the house.”

I glanced from the empty porch to Cindy’s wrinkled forehead. Imaging Patrick and his sister Sarah maneuvering the dryer down the ramp with Addy’s grandpa and great-uncle supervising, I said, “Not yet. We have more walnuts to find.” A twinge of guilt poked my heart because we didn’t have to gather all the walnuts. The squirrels could have a few.

“But I want to see my daddy,” Addy threw her hands to her sides as if trying to reason with a dense old person.

In a soothing voice, Cindy said, “We have to help Aunt Janet.”

Amelia scampered cheerfully through the grass. “Found one!”

I’d stopped picking up walnuts. Instead, I pointed my shoes at the fruit saying, “Here’s one,” for the energetic Amelia to find. 

When no more fruit could be found, Cindy and I glanced at the empty porch, shrugged our shoulders, and granted Addy’s wish. 

I hefted the basket to rest on my hip. Cindy toted the bucket. We marched. On the porch,  I set the bushel basket beside the full one already there, dumped the walnuts from the bucket into the second basket, and called to Spence. “Are they done?”

He rounded the corner. “Yeah. They’re just talking beside the van.”

“Addy wants her daddy.”

Spence cupped his hands and yelled. “Patrick. Addy wants you.”

Within five minutes the six adults selected porch chairs. Addy snuggled on her daddy’s lap. Amelia put a hand on Spence’s knee and pointed to the walnuts. “What’s inside?”

Spence selected a fruit, pulled his utility knife from a pocket, and cut into the husk. 

“Can I do it?” Amelia reached for the knife.

Exposed Walnut and Walnut Brown Fingertip

“No, honey.” He made another incision. “Your hands will turn brown.” Cutting away a section of husk, he exposed the nut. Juice dripped from the fruit, and his fingertip turned walnut brown. 

Amelia clasped her hands behind her back.

Cindy asked. “How do you process black walnuts?”

I explained.

Spread the fruit on the driveway.

Ask Spence to run over them with his tractor.

Twist and scrape the husk off.

Drop the nuts into a bucket of water.

Discard the floaters—they’re empty.

Scrub the sinkers with a wire brush until all the pulp is gone.

Dry the nuts on a screen for a couple of months.

Crack the nuts with a heavy-duty walnut cracker.

“That’s why I never complain about the price of nuts.” 

While the family muttered about grocery bills, I fetched a handful of frozen black walnuts that I’d processed the previous year. To test if frozen nuts were edible, I popped one into my mouth. A bold, earthy flavor exploded over my tongue. Yum. I dumped the nuts into a bowl and went back to the porch. “Only take one at first. Some people don’t like them.”

Addy grabbed one and munched. “They taste okay,” but she didn’t reach for more. 

Spence and Sarah declined. 

Cindy munched. “It has a fruity flavor.” 

Bruce smacked his lips. “Tasty.”

Amelia spat hers onto the floor.

“I don’t like it. But I swallowed mine.” Patrick picked up Amelia’s half-chewed nut and tossed it into the wastebasket. 

If only squirrels had taste buds like Amelia. They don’t. Squirrels fancy walnuts. They would gather all the nuts if Spence and I dallied at harvest time.

Still rooting for a mouse to be mesmerizing the trio of cats, I tiptoed to the porch and stayed a COVID-19 safe distance from the table to give a squirrel jumping room. 

No mouse.

No squirrel.

No walnut sticking out of the husk Spence had cut for Amelia. 

Judging from the husks on the table, the critter had absconded with at least two walnuts.

Squirrels taking nuts under the black walnut tree is fair. I didn’t appreciate them stealing nuts tucked under newspapers on the porch. For a temporary fix, I added a canning kettle lid over one bushel basket and an empty Amazon box over the other. The lid might baffle the squirrel. The flimsy carton wouldn’t. The real fix would be to move the bushel baskets, but each weighed as much as two sewing machines. I left them on the porch desk.  

As if the guard cats had expected me to bring them the thief, their ears, eyes, and tails drooped when I came back empty-handed. 

“We need to move the walnuts into the cold cellar, Spence.” I explained the theft and the gray suspect. 

He jotted a note on his clipboard. “I’ll do it with the dolly.”

The dolly resided in the garage, and the Mahindra—his dolly hauling vehicle—was in the tractor repair shop. I had to wait until we ransomed the tractor on Wednesday.

In the meantime, Rills provided more comfort than the ad hoc covers. He sat on the hewn log table and stared at the porch desk. No body parts twitched.

Three days after the theft, we moved the fruit but not to the cold cellar. We rolled the baskets to the bottom of the ramp and dumped the walnuts into the tractor bucket. 

Spence spread the fruit across the parking pad out front and drove over them to break the husks. He trundled off to gather the latest windfall. 

Dressed in the walnut-stained clothes I only wore for black walnut processing, I pulled on red rubber gloves to cover my hands and forearms. Perched atop a step stool, I grabbed the nearest smashed fruit, twisted the husk off, and scraped the freed nut with an old knife. I scraped off most of the pulp—stringy tan or slimy black depending on the freshness of the fruit. I also scraped off every single wiggling, white maggot.

Wild turkeys clucked in the woods. Spicy walnut fragrance mingled with the scent of decomposing leaves. A large insect landed on the back of my neck. I could feel its feet but couldn’t brush it off with my wet, pulpy gloves. Instead, I wiggled my shoulders until a grasshopper jumped away.

The husking process attracted yellow jackets. They buzzed over the mashed fruit. They landed on the scraped nuts extending their tiny tongues to the juice. The yellow jackets crawled on my pulp-splattered pants and flew at my face. I let the feisty wasps fly wherever they wanted, because, when riled, they sting repeatedly. At least they didn’t steal any walnuts.

Eight days after the walnut theft and four sessions of scraping with yellow jackets later, Spence stored the scraped nuts in the cold cellar. The walnuts are safe from squirrels while I scrub four or five dozen at a time—a task I hope to finish by Thanksgiving.

In the meantime, the cats take turns sitting on the hewn log table and staring out at the porch desk in case the walnut thief returns.

Walnut Processing Clothes