Harvesting Black Walnuts

 Yesterday's sunrise.  Just beautiful!

I took some time to pick up two five gallon buckets of our black walnuts.  They have pretty much fallen in the last few days here.  In fact, they were falling on me as I picked them up.  Black walnuts contain more protein than English walnuts and have a stronger flavor.

The hulling and rinsing process is underway, but these will need to dry in the sun.  (click on "read more" to see the remainder of the post).

Hubby and I built a drying tray for the hulled nuts.  We used scrap wood from the big barn project, and used chicken wire that was from the original, first goat fencing.  Much of the chicken wire had holes (from Misty's horns - lesson learned) so we just folded it in half and stapled it down.

If you have an old screen door, you could simply put that over a wheelbarrow, fill the screen up with hulled nuts and wheel it in and out of a garage or barn, to dry in the sun.

We hulled almost all of the nuts I picked up, but as you can see, it takes a lot of work to get a lot of nuts.  After they are hulled, they are rinsed off.  Some suggest a power washer, but I can't see how you could do that without the nuts flying all over.  We just used the water hose.  These will dry in the sun, then we'll test for dryness before shelling them.  The tree is still full of them, and the yard is too.

I'm excited to get this many hulled already, but as you know I am so sensitive to skin irritants, I had one casualty - an allergic reaction.  Ha.  We are both shaking are heads again.  I had on gloves that I use to cut up hot peppers, then another pair over those.  Hubby did as well.  When we pulled off our gloves, evidently my first pair had a hole, and the liquid from the walnut skins seeped in over my knuckles.  It burned my skin, turning it red and blotching, and blistery. 

I immediately washed my hands, and cut a slice from my aloe plant.  The aloe, straight from the aloe plant is working great.  I'll have an odd looking hand for a while, thanks to the gorgeous shade of brown the skins make, but the rash is under control.  Next batch I'll need some better gloves.   

Hubby didn't have a reaction, but his gloves didn't completely hold up either.  He has a few fingers dyed brown too.

By the way, I now have three aloe plants.