Nuts

Tonight I have more energy for photos, so here's the harvesting walnuts story.

You may remember the fruit from earlier in the summer, looking very unwalnut-like here. Top left is how they look on the tree now - some are still greenish, some are half-way, but when they get to this brown wrinkly stage they are ready to fall and, given a windy day or a bit of a shake, fall they do.

Top right is the walnut inside its mushy black coating. You need to wear gloves to remove the coating (or use a stick like I did) unless you want your hands stained with the tannins in the coating. The job of removing the coatings was apparently the job of the women in the old days, who would end up with hands stained auburn because of this black sticky stuff.

Once the black stuff is mostly removed (by Katherine in the case of those seen bottom left), the nuts are more recognisable. They then need a good wash.

Bottom right is a nut I cut open with secateurs as we have no nutcrackers here. When families would shuck their walnuts for sale, they would use boxwood hammers so as not to crack the nuts - as once broken they were worth less. The trees were very valuable to rural families, and at one time would have given them a large portion of their income for the year. The shells, apparently, are now ground up for kitty litter.

And yes, I did try one. And it was delicious. So all of you who put dibs on some of the walnuts might be disappointed.

Today was a mixed day - some busy (finishing the first stage of drywalling - hurrah!) and doing some admin and some not so busy (reading a bunch of old National Geographic magazines - I mean really old - some from the 1940s). The kids continue to be very keen on homework and even - without bribery or threats - asked to try the aubergine out of the garden. We haven't even tried offering them to the kids because they have an extraordinarily strong taste which, in the end, neither of them liked. But they did at least try it (which for our kids is unusual). I also picked the second melon from the garden today which is currently filling the room with its sweet aroma... Lovely.