17-year-old Helena Muffly wrote exactly 100 years ago today:
Saturday, October 12, 1912: Was busy hulling walnuts today. I estimated them to have amounted to about half a bushel. My work in that is not finished yet.
Her middle-aged granddaughter’s comments 100 years later:
A half- bushel of walnuts is a lot to hull (remove the outer layer)—though it’s going to be a lot bigger job to crack them after they dry.
I also gathered and hulled walnuts this fall—though I only gathered a couple pounds.
This year I wore plastic gloves when I hulled them. Last year I stained my hands while hulling them—and it took at least a week to get rid of the ugly brown stains.
Previous posts on gathering and cracking walnuts
Hulling Walnuts is not fun. My Dad would gather them and take them to a man who has a machine that hulls them for him.
Looks like it was seriously hard work…walnut stain looks better on furniture 😉
I learn so much ….
We have a pecan tree but the squirrels eat all the nuts and throw the shells down. We did once have a black walnut tree and I remember we did get some of them. I remember the smell better than the taste.
Interesting links, So are you actually eating the dried fruit when you eat walnuts? Or once cracked, are you eating a seed?
Now I know what that stain on my rug is! It’s from walking on these walnuts that have fallen all over the yard! Looking forward to those ‘new’ old fashioned recipes with walnuts! 🙂
Walnuts were used to die homespun cloth for centuries.
Though I hated having brown on my hands, it would have been a pretty shade of brown on cloth.
Oh, this brings back memories. My dad had a workshop out in a shed, and had a vice on one of the work tables. YEARS after he died, my nephews and I (as children) decided to crush black walnuts in that vice (unbeknownst to our moms). We had walnut stain all over our hands, and our moms didn’t find anything to take it off. Just time…!
It definitely takes time! I’m always amazed how long it takes for walnut stains to fade away.
To hull black walnuts, I leave them in the garbage cans until they are real gooey. Then I put them in an elevated soil sifter made of 1/2″ hardware cloth. I don my rubber rain-gear, pants, parka and gloves, to power wash them. I blast them clean, dry them on the lawn and put them in the root cellar until I am stuck indoors with nothing else to do. (sometimes years)
It’s fun to read about how you hull black walnuts. I never would have thought of power washing them.