walnut day

It was supposed to rain all weekend. That may explain the frantic pace of yard work. I love yard work. I love dirt under my fingernails, sharp rose clippers, electric hedge trimmers. My Hedgehog is hardly a workhorse, but it works well for the things I need it for: Chaparral, the bee bushes, pink willow. Pruning back dead perennials gives me great satisfaction. On Sunday the rain still didn't come. I started on the walnuts. Barely out of my pajamas, I raked them away from the fence. Gently. The husks are nasty and full of black dye. Even in rubber-fingered garden gloves, it gets through. Each pull of the rake knocks a few more nuts loose from their black casings. Between the wind and squirrels, much of the work is done for me. Many nuts are loose and just need to be picked up. This is where I could use grandchildren. I'd give them a penny apiece and they'd make good money. By the end of the morning I had two five-gallon buckets full. Thousands of walnuts. I could bake a million Russian Teacakes, or tiny loaves of banana bread or chocolate chip cookies, which I wish I would make with only walnuts and no chocolate chips. I don't care for them, but I'm not sure if the dough would be as good without the contrast of the chocolate. But I, personally, have no grandchildren of my own. So back to the walnut harvest. Eventually I'd picked all of the free walnuts and separated away all of the giant leaves that fall from the walnut tree and was left with several smallish piles of still-in-the-husk walnuts. I figured I'd leave something for the squirrels to do. It is winter, after all.

I remember my walnut tree on 4th and Oak in Central Point. The walnuts that fell from the tree and bounced onto the porch were hazardous -- or the drinking was. Anyhow, I had many a sprained ankle. Took to wearing high-tops. Reeboks.

But I digress. I was sitting in my living room gazing out my side yard window and noticed the bark on the walnut tree was different on one side than the other. Upon closer investigation, the leaves were different on that part of the tree. English walnuts have big flat leaves. These were many small leaves along a common spine. Then, come harvest time, I found that the walnuts on one side were actually black walnuts -- a bitch to crack and pick.

Anyway. I got up this morning feeling like I'd done squats for about a hundred hours straight. I could barely move from one place to the next, getting up from sit to stand took real effort. I am getting old.