Nuts

I have a T-shirt that reads, "So many books, so little time."
Appropriate, for someone who spends her day working at the local library, thumbing through the latest publications--glimpses of the never-ending stream of best-selling novels cranked out by those famous names such as Grisham and Patterson and Parker.
Only, to return home to a yard of seasonal chores--leftovers from the ambitious plans of an always-too-short weekend.
Sometimes I feel like I'm chasing my own tail.
Caught on the hamster wheel, once again.

Black Walnut, Juglans nigra
fully leafed-out and showing nuts

flowering in spring

And although I should be able to turn my eyes from the scads of Black Walnuts thrown in ankle-breaking regularity across the yard,
I feel they should be gathered for winter.
Collected and processed into the wonderful cakes and cookies with that wild, Black Walnut kick.

A laundry basket and three 5-gallon pails are already full and poised by the back door.
And the yard has been blanketed, yet again--the green-hulled, tennis ball-sized nuts, now dark brown and beginning to show signs of losing their pungent jackets.
Soon, the black hulls will slough off, and, wearing heavy rubber gloves, I'll wash and rinse the rough, furrowed shells, until the black water runs clean and clear.
Black Walnut stains are deep and dark--and long lasting.

Throughout the winter, bit by bit, I'll crack the impossibly hard shells indoors, seated on the hearth of a glowing wood stove.
My hammer and favorite cracking stone, a slab of river rock with the perfect nut-sized depression, stand ready.
Soon, to extricate each delicious morsel, hidden deeply within its elaborately chambered case.

I wonder if this force I sense to gather them is like that the squirrels feel.
And if they, too, sigh deeply each morning, looking out over the yard beneath the walnut trees.
There is yet much to be done.

Black Walnuts in basket

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Nuts

Leaves aren't the only falling objects.
The sharp crack of hickory nuts on the skylights reminds me that I am in a race to gather nuts.
A race against the squirrels for the tasty black walnuts so plentiful on our property.



Each fall, we fill buckets with the green tennis ball-like orbs that blanket the grass.

The pungent, citrusy smell of their husks so refreshing--their juice such an impossibly dark stain. And the flavor of the nut locked inside worth every bit of finger-tearing, thumb-crushing, hammer-pounding work. A tougher nut I cannot imagine.
Stooping and picking this evening, from amidst the dry, fallen leaves, I sense something is very wrong. The walnuts, now faded from lime green to gold, are far lighter than I remember. They have almost no weight at all.

Maybe this year's drought and heat were too much stress for the tree.
Maybe there will be no nut inside that tough shell.
Maybe I should leave some for the squirrels.
Nuts.