Walnuts and Leaves

Oh, the leaves and nuts are falling in full force these days. There are 21 crates of nuts drying in the front room and easily 100 times more waiting to be picked up! The rains are coming soon though and it makes for a mucky mess especially at the back door. Clean up and pick up is underway!

Raking and picking and raking and sifting through the leaves for more nuts! It was such a pleasant afternoon we enjoyed the work and our dogs enjoyed the nuts too!

Each pile was carefully inspected for more nuts! That seems like a lot of attention for the walnuts, but time is ticking and the longer they are on the ground the more the damp foggy mornings can affect them. So we are picking and cleaning and drying as quickly as possible at this time of year.

Aaahhh, now the serious raking begins! The tractor was used to scoop and move many loads of leaves to the back pasture.

Eagerly waiting, but keeping their distance from the tractor, our goats will really enjoy the leaves. Don't worry. Goats naturally pace themselves. They graze and eat when they are hungry. When there is a new treat, they gobble up and fight over the best spot to eat, but they don't overfill.

Many more trips to move the leaves and the husks from the walnuts and the area was nearly clear of the ground cover.

At last, the work is done...well, half of the tree and ground under it is finished enough to limit the amount of debris entering the house!

There are many more trees to clear and plenty of leaves on the ground, but many, many more left to fall. It is a gorgeous time of year in Southern Oregon!

Now, back to the walnuts!! Drying, curing, bagging, cracking, cleaning, baking, chopping, eating goodness!

Walnut Harvest

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We are still in the midst of Walnut Season! The eight English walnut trees have produced abundantly. The photos also show what a beautiful fall we have had...still no hard freezes, so the leaves on the trees got to turn every colorful shade and we have enjoyed the streaming golden light everyday. Some of our grandkids have come to help pick up and play in the walnuts and on Halloween they had a brown sugar coated treat to keep the monsters away! At this time of year there are fewer crates drying inside by the woodstove, usually between two and four crates. At the height of the collecting season, there were 3 racks across by 4 racks high by 6 racks deep in our living room...that is a lot of walnuts drying with two fans blowing and the woodstove keeping a steady dry heat. Literally hundreds and hundreds of pounds have been picked, dried, cured, bagged, and shelled! Now we are selling them by the poundage either in the shell or out of the shell. Once they are shelled, it is best to freeze them right away for the optimum freshness. We like to use vacuum packers in pint and quart size bags, but also use freezer bags. We are enjoying the nuts in the kitchen eating them raw, in granola bars, walnut pralines, in soup, plum cake, cranberry-orange-walnut birthday cake, pumpkin or butternut squash casserole, in Thanksgiving stuffing, brown sugar and cinnamon coated, and more! We also love the leafless walnut branches silhouetted against a crisp, cool, clear evening sky~ How do you like your walnuts?