Gathering walnuts with my mom with my mom will always be one of my favorite pastimes. We would go out and gather then just as soon as they dropped off the trees, when the husks were still green.

The house we lived in at the time had a crushed gravel driveway, so we’d spread them out in the driveway and allow the vehicles to run over them for a few days..breaking off those hard green husks. Then we’d gather them up and complete the husking process by hand. My mom always kept those mesh potato and onion bags on hand, so we’d fill those us and hang them in various places in the garage and barn for a few months dry out.

When it came time to use the walnuts in various recipes from cookies to cakes and everything in between, Mom would pull out here hammer and crack a huge bowl full, then we’d sit in the living room picking the nut meat out of the shells while spending a leisurely evening together.

Thank you for posting your blog, you’ve renewed some wonderful memories for me.

I laughed my head off at the pic of the squirrel—she’s bookin’ with that nut! (Note: if you have kitties, you won’t have squirrels. We know this for a fact.)
I admit that we have several 30-year-old black walnut trees on our property, and we are only just now becoming interested in actually using the nuts. I was interested to learn that cracking them with a vise is effective.
My great-aunt had a lifelong scar on her forehead that occurred when she and my other great-aunt, her sister, were fighting over a hammer to crack the black walnuts with when they were kids. Aunt M. told Aunt G., “Gimme that hammer!” and, well, Aunt G. did, with considerable force.

My in-laws have a black walnut tree and last year was the first time I ever harvested them. It is a process! But I candied and toasted them and they were awesome. A great little fall time snack!

My mother’s best friend used Walnut husks to cover the gray in her hair.

I remember my mother getting a big trash bag of them and we husked them in the bag. I think it was to keep us kids from getting stains all over ourselves and our clothes. I can’t seem to remember if we ever ate them. I am guessing that we did. Or my parents did when we were in bed. They always have nuts in the shells for the winter. A tradition I have not continued.

The way we paid for our tractor to be serviced every year was with walnuts. We raked and bagged them up and Mr Fred repaired/serviced our tractor every year. He has since passed away but my husband says that is how they(his family) always paid him…. with walnuts!

that pic of the squirrel is so funny! I can imagine what he is saying, “thanks for the hard work, now all I have to do is eat it!”