The Sky is Falling!!

October 9, 2013

written by Cathy Baker, mom of two sweet tweens, who have a love/hate relationship with black walnuts

The sky is falling, the sky is falling!! I feel like Chicken Little this time of year, as I find myself repeating this line LOTS when I’m outside. I am certain Chicken Little thought the sky was falling because it was a walnut that fell on his head.

Once upon a time, our neighborhood was a walnut farm.  So we have lots of nice mature trees here in our neighborhood…but this time of year, it’s almost dangerous to go for a walk in our yard or around the block.

Do you have any idea how big walnuts are? With their hull, they are about the size of pool balls! Here are a couple of bushels we picked up one morning in our yard.

Here are a few things to know about walnuts.

1. They stink.
2. They rot quickly.
3. They will turn your hand black if you break them open. DO NOT break them open!

However, Hammons Walnuts is the largest processor and supplier of black walnuts in the world, and they are located just about an hour away from us.  Black walnuts are one of the few crops that are still harvested by hand. In fact, 65% of the black walnuts they resell are hand picked here in Missouri.  So let me tell you a little bit about the process.

1. We pick up walnuts. And pick up some more.  We fill our 4×8 trailer.

2. We take all our walnuts to a ‘huller’ station. We wait our turn. The picture below is from a couple of years ago when we were waiting in line at the huller.

3. Then we push all our walnuts into the huller.  The huller removes the hull from the nutshell. See photo below…into the huller they go!

4. Currently they are paying $13 for 100 pounds of walnuts, after they are hulled.  Do you know how many walnuts that is?! This trailer full probably brought the girls $20-30.  I looked up our profits from 2 years ago and we made 5 trips to the huller and the girls (and their friends) earned $140 that fall!  They definitely work to earn this money, but I love all the fresh air, and exercise they are getting this time of year outside. It’s good for me too, as I pitch in and help them out sometimes! 🙂  I also love that it’s a job they can do to earn money.

5. After we leave the walnuts at the huller, they load up huge semis with walnuts (without the hull) and sell them to Hammons.

6. Hammons then separates the black walnut ‘meat’ from the shell, bags them and sells those walnuts around the world. They also sell the shells which are used to make various products.

So next time you buy some black walnuts at the store, (umm, holiday baking is coming up!) think of my girls picking up each walnut by hand!  A labor of love, for our yard to your kitchen! 😉

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Category: Random and Fun
Tags: fall, walnuts |