All of us busy, busy squirrels are gathering nuts for the winter. This pic shows the contrast between a black walnut, on the left, and a butternut on the right. Both are delicious but I think the butternut is far better for eating out of hand. Black walnuts are best in fudge or any type of chocolate baked goods. The pic can't show the other very noticeable difference between the two. The hull on butternuts is very sticky when they are green, the black walnut's is not. This was a poor year for butternuts here so almost everything we gathered this year is black walnut.
Here is our pile of goodies, all in the hull of course.The full bags weigh about 75 pounds. Right after this is when the big job of removing all those hulls started. We put them in a shallow box and stomp on them to smash the hulls. The nuts are then separated from the hulls and laid out to dry. If you don't wear rubber gloves while handling the hulls they will give you a nice indelible brown color on your hands. The hulls give off a substance that inhibits the growth of many plants so I am careful about where I dump them.
This is a pic of some of the country side on one of our road trips. The fall colors were not showing well then but have gotten very nice since then.
Well, back to gathering nuts for me, winter is not far away!
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