Walnuts falling

Hello,

The scrawny looking walnut tree in the back yard seems to have a bumper crop in spite of the dryness. Guess those tree roots go deep and tap unseen sources of moisture. So many nuts are falling that I keep stepping on them either in the grass or on the sidewalk where my foot rolls along a little before coming to rest on more sure footing. The other day as we were getting ready to go on the bike ride a walnut fell, hitting me on my “expensive” Nike jacket. Course the jacket was that bright light neon green so walnut stain does not blend in at all. In fact it is quite noticeable. So far I have not tried to treat it because I am not sure what to do. I suppose I could look it up on the internet, but have not taken the time to do that.

I keep thinking we should gather some of the walnuts, but then there is that perennial problem of how to get rid of that outer green/black oozing husk. It would be better to have a pet squirrel trained to take that off. I often hear one of them working on the walnuts. They must have the strongest teeth in the neighborhood as they can crack these nuts by using their teeth. They make quite a bit of noise when they do this.

I have uploaded my photos from when the girls were here. You can see in the pictures of the chicken experience how we used plastic bread bags for boots. The very last picture in that album is a squirrel eating a nut while sitting on the fence. It is not so clear because it was in the shadow. When I tried to get closer the squirrel got nervous and dashed up the tree.

I realize many of you will not want to look at all the pictures and I have not really edited any out because Leroy has not yet seen them. But here is the link anyway. https://picasaweb.google.com/111129304688608118094/201209112012MiriamSVisit?authkey=Gv1sRgCJDXwP2-8JHJqgE

Paula