Four Bags Full

All those walnuts that I picked up a couple of weeks ago have been haunting me. With all the preparations getting the farm ready for fall, the ongoing firewood processing/delivery schedule. traipsing through the woods for mushrooms at every opportunity, and the looming REAL Oregon program, I have been obsessed with trying to get the buckets of walnuts dried, cracked, shelled and packaged for the freezer.

Simply leaving the trays full of drying nuts spread out on the picnic table on the back porch is not an option. Critters like gray squirrels would love to raid the piles to make stashes of their own for the winter. Flies and bugs are already trying to snuggle into the piles for a comfy fall nap. And even the barn cats have been venturing as far as the house to see what fun things they can get into. The drying process is not complete so I can’t bucket them up and keep them in the garage because they would mold. Leaving them outside when colder weather hits could freeze them in their shells. I just can’t leave the temptation of exposed walnuts just laying around until I’m back from my travels.

I have been furiously cracking and shelling nuts after dinner while catching up on the evening news and a few good shows. My little edge of the dinning room table is my workspace. The rest of the family has to put up with the cracking noise while they are computering, or watching TV, or helping to get the process complete. Mike has begun wearing an earplug in his left ear as I crack.

Completed so far are just over four gallon bags of dried, shelled walnuts ready to be put in the freezer for whatever the next year will bring. By the time the cracking is complete there should be just over five bags harvested and stored, before all the pliers, picks, channel locks and hammers are put away for the year.

Forget using the nut pliers that you have sitting in your junk drawer. I have found that channel lock pliers work so much better. I can control the amount of force that I use to crack the shell without crushing the tender nut inside. I use the smaller ones for filberts/ hazelnuts, and the larger ones for walnuts. Click on the picture for more information about the pliers. By clicking, you can shop as you normally do and do not have to purchase any item promote. I may make a small commission without a cost to you. Thank you