Hard as bricks to crack. They leave your hands in a mess too, Polly. I have about a dozen more left to crack; got them when I ventured to the mountains last fall. I could easily eat my weight in them but I really hate to crack them.

Jenna's just too cute, bangs or not!!!

Polly is that you or Michelle in the tree?
I can't always tell the difference, you know.

That's Michelle. Wish I looked that young.

One time we saved some black walnuts to crack. We got to them somehow before the squirrels. They still had the green outside, whatever you call it. They got moldy before we could crack them. My husband loves them, too. And they are pricey in bags, wonder why?

Pricey because they are so hard to crack and maybe because the producing trees are getting scarce these days. I dunno.
The green hulls are hard to remove too but if you can wait till they dry, not so difficult.

That's what I tried to do and they molded. I had them laid out on the kitchen island, on newspaper, not touching each other, with the ceiling fan on. But maybe it was just too humid at that time.

A lot of people up here have planted the trees for a money crop. The wood is going for quite a bit. I promise we will not clear cut it.

I already know you would never do anything to adversely affect Nature, Polly.
Otherwise you'd hardly be up there on top of my best friend forever list, you know.

Walnuts are much sought after hardwood.

The price per board foot has gone up at least 20X since we planted it. So, I think it would be a good source for Jamie and Jennas college education.

I don't wish to offend anyone here who are against cutting trees, but we've been Christmas tree farmers since my Dad was a little boy. And believe it or not, I am a tree hugger.

Polly, are you related to my brother? He is a Christmas tree farmer too, right there on our mountain.

He staggers his cuttings, just like Aunt Bett used to be sure I staggered my plant collecting.
Take one, leave 5; take 2 leave 10.
Staggering.
She taught me math that way!

We have different kinds of Christmas trees that grow at different rates, and we harvest them at a certain height, like 3-7 feet. Then next to the stump we plant another, so there is always something there.

Same thing, staggering.
I think my brother does that too.

Polly - What I have problems with people cutting trees is cutting them to plant grass. Trees are useful. Grass is wasteful. Even cutting down Christmas trees from a farm is not a bad thing: young pine trees grow much faster than older trees, thus absorbing more CO2. And as long as the tree is turned into mulch, which then gives the soil back it's nutrients, it's all 100% good. It's when the tree is sprayed with flocking or other crap (which my father did every year even though I was deathly allergic to the flocking, would be wheezing for days after he sprayed a minimum of 6 cans of the crap while smoking a cigarette) and then thrown in the garbage where it does no good...

I've posted this before, but not here. When DH & I were looking to buy our first house in '05, I had a few stipulations: 1) no HOA (hate them) 2) had to have a basement 3) single story ranch, 4) mature non-grass yard (if possible). DH added that it had to have AC, I countered with a swamp cooler. We found a house on the 2nd day of looking.. it was in an area I had looked in before but not seriously (just fiddlefarting on realtor.com The house wasn't the biggest or the prettiest or the fanciest, but it fit the bill as far as ranch/basement/no HOA, and most importantly, a yard that was perfect for what I wanted. It had a giant mature aspen in the front (37' tall), the massive juniper (that's when I found out I was allergic), a gorgeous green ash tree about 25', and a humungo silver maple. The house sits at the end of a cul-de-sac, so I have a pie-wedge. The front yard is closet sized (like the narrowest part is 12', the widest part is like 35' by like 90' long), but the back yard is 174' long by 61' on one side & 82' on the other. It's the largest lot in my neighborhood and I *love* it.

We bought it in August, 2005. (August 26th, 2005 to be exact.) When we were signing paperwork, and then I gave them the cashier's check for a little over $7,000 (the most amount of money I've ever had in my life that was mine), they handed me 2 keys. I looked at the keys and say, "You know, I can go to Walmart and buy these for 98 cents." The lady laughed and said, "But these come with a free house!" Oooh, big difference there.

Scary feeling buying a house.

Fast forward to Oct 10, 2005, not quite 2 months later. The night previous, the weather had predicted a small snow storm to come through & give us a dusting. Sure, it was a little early, but not that big of a deal. Sometime through the night, though, the wind changed & blew from west to east and went from east to west. And here in the D-metro, any time the wind blows "backwards" against the mountains, that's gonna be a huge snow storm. We ended up getting over 2' of snow with that storm. And this was a heavy wet sloppy snow. I'd gotten up at about 7 to get ready for work by 9, and when I looked out my bedroom window & saw the snow piled up in the window well, I figured I needed to go outside & brush it off the trees, too. You see, we hadn't gotten a killing frost yet so all the trees were still fully leafed out. I went upstairs & started to put on my snow boots and was startled by hearing this:



That's my beautiful 25' green ash tree, broken right where the crown starts. There was no saving that tree.

I've since added new trees to the back yard ("Hot Wings" maple, Golden Chain, Golden Rain, Thunderchild plum, Indian Magic crabapple, Canadian Red Chokecherry, Princeton Gold Maple, Sunburst locust, Wate's Gold pine, hillside gold pine, and a flame maple), but to have lost that mature tree like that? I wanted to cry.

We have lots of black walnuts here and did at our home in OH too.

It is the most expensive per board foot American hardwood. I'm thinking because it takes so long to reach maturity?

Nasty, dirty, filthy, and stinky to work with though

Good eating though

We crossed Toni - I'm so sorry you lost your tree

Now I have cut down tree for aesthetics. The aspen in the front had to go. 1) it would brush against the roof of the house every time a wind storm came up, 2) developed "aspen fungus" that is nasty, 3) was sending out suckers EVERYWHERE, 4) massive roots all throughout the yard & I was afraid of the roots screwing up my foundation..

Here's my thread on it coming down.

The thread "It's Coming DOWN!!!" in Roses forum

I've replaced it with a teeny little Japanese maple now (hopefully it'll survive the winter this year as the Tricolor beech I had put in it's spot didn't survive this summer)

I cried when I lost my ash and the magnolia too, but I still have 2 yellow maples, a red maple, a huge bald cypress, another magnolia, hollies, a smoke tree, the Golden Rain tree, a mimosa, a persimmon and of course the smaller redbud and Japanese maple and the River birch.

I cried hardest when the neighbor cut down the oak tree that was right on our line for no reason at all.
Oh and the cottonwood that is also huge but on the other line on the west.

I also forgot the two cedars in my yard, one front, one back.

I never did like walnuts...too bitter...prefere pecans...also easier to shell.

Sharon...the dogwoods were old and to my thinking as a child very tall...above our 3 story house. My favorite was the pink.

Wow.
I never saw a dogwood tree that tall. Most of them that grew wild over the mountains were more like understories. Same here in the western part of the state, just not very tall. Maybe 30 feet at the most and not many even that tall.

Maybe you only had an unripe walnut, Gin.
They don't seem bitter to me, just not as sweet as pecans. Now I don't like English walnuts much, nor white walnuts, but black walnuts I dearly love. I love pecans too. Never did like macadamias very much though.

I don't care for macadamias either. I eat a handful of English walnuts everyday - good and good for me I take a bag, put on cookie sheet, sprinkle with cinnamon, toast them, and then put in a container in the refrigerator.

Now even I might like them like that.
Or dipped in chocolate.