It's going to be a long rough winter
 

If the old-timers saying is correct. 14 mounded wheelbarrows of black walnuts so far.
It'll be about the most ever by the time they all fall....meaning a hard winter.

The upper branches of the tree are still hanging with groups of them. Notice the height of the tree comparing it to the utility pole in front of it.


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The walnut gravesite keeps growing.

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You keep thinking that is a burden to deal with.

In fact it is free walnuts for life, with a little bit of work.
Give that tree some space.

^^^ What??

The closest tree to it is forty feet away.

Mount Walnut ... famous tourist site!

This is the year my neighbor's tree is dropping 'em bigly too ... it's cyclical, some years none, 6, or 6 gallons ... from one stinkin' limb that hangs over....

Those trees belong in da woods I tellz ya .... and I toss my stash into them....

I don't really have a problem tho' ...

A good share of the dropped walnuts end up in the road. Cars hit them and the nut gets squeezed out and hits the underside of the car. It's loud when it happens and sounds like a gunshot. :)

I can imagine that some of the drivers are going WTF!

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Interestng, our oaks and hickory trees are also dropping lots of nuts, more than normal it seems.

I removed a bathroom skylight that used to catch a few ... it got yer attention!

Willow Oaks are really dropping this year too... both are bigly after a couple of light years... but not the biggest...

I didn't realize Pecan trees were "every other year" growing up ...

Trees are nuts :D

A tree like that is worth a small fortune...

I know a guy that buys and removes special hardwood trees for furniture and veneer.
I asked him about removing it..mostly just to get it out of there.

He said that being by the road there was too much chance of nails and wire being in the core.....he didn't want it. But yeah...it's got a large trunk that is very straight.

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I've seen a bunch of stuff online with folks asking about having logs out of yards milled, and heard the same many, many times. Most mills won't touch a tree out of someone's yard because the chance of finding metal (bullets, wire, nails, etc...) embedded in the tree is high, and the profit from milling that log won't touch replacing their blade after it runs into something. I cut up a pecan that fell, and cut a dead branch off of a pin oak. I wish I'd realized/thought about using my chainsaw to cut them up and dry some planks/wood from them.

Two things. Masting, the process of producing ‘excessive’ nuts, is normal and cyclical. Second, the volume of fruit (in this case, walnuts) does not indicate the severity of the coming winter. It indicates the overall health of the tree.

Trees bearing fruits (or nuts in this case) overproduce fruit (nuts) is an ultimate resistance against their inevitable demise. However, typically, the velocity of the demise of the tree is quite unpredictable.

So, be comforted in that the tree has reached, and maybe gone beyond, the typical range of its lifespan.

Question is, ‘Who goes first; you or the tree?

I had a guy stop one year when I was shoveling them up and he asked if he could have them. I was more than happy to tell him yes and go for it.
Him and his wife came out and picked them all up a few diff times. He said he dumps them in his gravel driveway and drives over them all winter. When the meat is totally off the nut, they pick them up and crack the nuts open for the walnut.

He only did it for one season....never heard from him after that.:)

Easy answer...Me.
I just hope it's not while raking and shoveling walnuts.

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But you would be remembered as someone who expired doing what they loved.

A huge consolation, right?

I have the routine down to the easiest method of picking them up.

I start with when mowing around the tree, I set the blade height to 2 inches or less...just like a golf green.
Then when the nuts start dropping, they rake easily into groups. I then use my poly scoop shovel to load them into a wheelbarrow and dump them into the graveyard.
It takes maybe 15 minutes to clean them up each time....but it happens almost every day for a couple weeks.

Remembered as a real nut job....I like it.:D

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There is a story of a Indian fort in Oklahoma and the General in charge was worried about a cold winter, so he had his men chopping wood and stocking up.

He sent a crusty old sergeant to talk to the local Indian chief and get his opinion on the coming winter. The chief, said yes major bad winter coming. So the fort stockpiled more wood.

The sergeant was sent to talk to the chief, yes very bad winter coming! So the fort stockpiled more wood.

The general sent the sergeant back one more time and the chief sad really very bad winter coming. The sergeant finally asked how do you know it will be a bad winter? The chief pointed at the fort and said white man stocking up on much fire wood!

Strange, we have a big hickory in our backyard as well as several oaks and none have been producing much this year.

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^^^ As Crowbob said...it's cyclical and your southern area may be on a diff time than our great white north area.:)

(white as in snow.:))

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Who else calls Willow Oaks by the name we've always used too... they are Pin Oaks around here ... tiny, slender leaves and itty-bitty nuts... bigly, bigly trees!

We have Red Oaks and White Oaks...which neither one wants to drop their leaves in the fall.
I don't think we have Willow Oaks here.

The walnuts around here are out of control with the mess they are making.
And then the squirrels can't help themselves to hiding them everywhere.
There is one between the bumper and bed of my Tundra that I have no idea how to get it out.

My dad tried several times to plant a pecan tree in a spot that had one destroyed from an ice storm. He bought a small tree, and it died. He got a free replacement tree, and it died. He dug out all the old roots, and had the area prepped to get another tree, but my mom had some health issues that kept him busy. He gave up on having a pecan tree there. Then a squirrel buried one in that spot, and forgot it. It grew into a tree. I liked to tease my dad that it just needed squirrel spit to grown into a tree. It was a bit off center of the spot he had made a tree ring for the tree, but it grew big enough to produce pecans on it's own.

A trip to the university of youtube, and I'm flabbergasted at the amount of effort required to prepare black walnuts for eating.

No wonder they end up in giant piles, rotting away.

The soft black meat between the outer skin and the nut is used for herbal pastes that will remove moles, warts, and skin tags.

I bought a small 3gm container once recommended by my Dr. I had a mole/wart on the nail side of my thumb that was getting scraped and would bleed. The more this happened, the more the wart dug in.

Just apply a small covering of the mole/wart with the paste and a bandaid over it. Within a week it will start an infection of the mole/wart and it will finally fall out, root and all, after about 2 weeks.
Mine fell out and never reappeared.

The container states the main ingredient is black walnut and mineral salts.
Bio-T is the company and it works.

Pickled immature (green) black walnuts are a thing, as is soaking them in booze for months to make nocino. You're supposed to process them when they're still soft enough to shove a paring knife through them.

I want to try, but those trees are pretty rare in the NM mountains.

We have lots of bigly red and white oaks too ...

If Steve will ship you walnuts for pickling ... then I will stand by my long standing offer to send him baby turtles!

Baby Slapperz ... hybrids ... the Doberhuahua of the pond :D

Doesn't seem that bad in this video. Step on them to remove the green husk, stick them in water, dry them, crack them.

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Sure, I'll send them out....after I get a front-end loader to pick them up.
(I'm not shoveling them up twice):D

Too late for baby snappers...the turtles are already hiding because of the cold water, wondering when they get to move inside.

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I read a weather related article this morning that stated the southeast was going to have a mild winter . Northeast ......... get your coats ready !

^^^ Every winter here is a 'get your coats ready' winter.:D

I just hope it's not a winter that drags on until April.

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I groom the cross country ski trails up in Traverse City area. I say bring on the snow!! The more the better : )

I can imagine that's a very enjoyable winter job.
I've never cc skied there, but I downhill skied many times at Sugar Loaf west of TC

I hear they might reopen?

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It was actually donated to the Local Nature Conservancy. It’s going to eventually open up with hiking trails, mountain bike trails, and hike up downhill skiing. And more.

Had a huge post oak in front of my folks old house. It went from health to dead in just a few years. Found plenty of hardware from barb wire to coat hooks inside while processing it for fire wood. My son and son-in-law slabbed some of it out for wood working projects.
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^^^ I have an old pic (from the 1920's) of two of my uncles when they were teens.
They are sitting next to a sawn tree taking a break. The saw they had looks just like yours. (yours might have finer teeth)

One of them told me, when I was about that age, they would sometimes spend the whole day working that crosscut saw. It's no wonder in that age there weren't very many 'out of shape' young adults.:)

I don't think gas chain saws were around yet. (or they couldn't afford one)

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There's a person in Delphos offering $13/100lb of black walnuts Steve! Beer money Steve!!

Exactly what my neighbor (in VA) thought. He had one between our houses that shed nasty stuff all year long right onto my patio. I would have paid to cut it down. He said no, it was worth a bunch and eventually had it cut down (to my delight). Even had to have a crane involved to lower it. It laid there for about 3 weeks until he finally paid someone to haul it away. No saw mill wanted it because (as stated) may have nails and stuff that would ruin the saw mill’s expensive blade. Nasty, nasty trees. Sorry for the bad review.

Bring a truck and you can have them at half that price.:D

Tuesday was the last time I raked and shoveled them up...there was 22 wheelbarrows full so far.
Sunday we're supposed to have high winds... So I'm sure by Monday the ground will be covered again when I return.

This guy is getting ready for winter. There’s peanuts buried all over the place. A neighbour across the road feeds the pigeons squirrels.

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