Friday, August 2, 2013

Free Food

A shagbark hickory tree has a three-year cycle, producing lots of nuts, then some, then squat, and I didn't know that, so last year when the shade tree had squat I blamed drought, or squirrels, or myself somehow, and was a sad sack until I heard this year's nuts pinging on my roof and smacking the pump-house roof, and  beheld a whole darned treefull to harvest.

They cluster in twos and sometimes threes. I pick only those I can reach from terra firma or by standing on top of the pump house, the only time I ever do anything so foolish. Still I filled a basket.

Within the spicy-fragrant (like Old Spice shaving lotion) green husk is a small brown husk hiding the nut. The green husk dries to brown, splits, and must be removed, and then the tight-as-a-leotard inner husk must dry; by that time, it's Christmas. Needing a drying rack and loath to buy one I raided the garage and made a duplex drying rack out of a plastic organizer that just never fit anywhere in the house and a screen that no longer has a window to match.

Ultimately I will have about a pound of nuts to look forward to. Cracking my own hickory nuts at Christmas is divine.
at

2 comments:

  1. Julia Gordon-BramerAugust 3, 2013 at 9:17 AM

    I think I've heard that trees sometimes take a year off from producing. But what do I know? ;-)

    Love your ingenuity! If you get a lot of them, maybe I'll buy a bag off of you to put some in banana bread or something.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Buford NatureAugust 11, 2013 at 7:59 AM

    You can separate mast and hulls by crushing and tossing the nuts into water. The mast floats and the hulls sink. I have done this with pignuts. Makes one feel so Neolithic, sitting in the shade and banging away on nuts with rocks.

    ReplyDelete