Harvest your own nuts

“There were a few times when I could keep my waning enthusiasm up and I would begin to harvest some walnuts. First I would search the ground for those not too far gone in the decomposition process. The pungent plum-sized green husks were easy to spot in the grass and there were plenty to grab. After gathering a good bag full I would shuck the husks from the nut shell. I have read that settlers used those husks to make a brown dye that was quite colorfast. It certainly worked on my hands until I wised up and started using rubber gloves. And my, but whatever those little worms were, they loved those husks. I guess not all of the nuts picked from the ground were as fresh as I thought. Nature’s little agents of the biodegradeable were at work. Yuck.”

“The long, thin pecans are easy to crack. So easy in fact that as kids, we would stand there in the yard and crack them open as we hunted. You probably know this, but you crack them by putting two in the palm of your hand and squeezing them together. Then you carefully dig out the buttery meat. If you get a bite of the bitter “divider” between the two nut halves, then you’ve got to use your (now dirty) hand to scrape that awful flavor off your tongue. And, if you could get it, a swig of water helps to get rid of that grainy, icky taste. Do that once and you’ll be a very careful sheller of nuts.”