calling any one from missouri

[SueT]

Most of my chickens are done molting now. Here is Beldar before, and today. He never lost them all at once, but most of his tail was gone and his beautiful whites were all stained. He looks quite regal again. He's 1 1/2 yr old now.

 

[karenerwin]

We had 4 tons of gravel delivered this morning so I have been working to cover and fill in the pathway from the house to the chicken yard and dog run. The puppies have turned it into a dust pit/ mud hole with all their digging for moles and running and wrestling. Rock sure is heavy. My pile doesn’t seem to be going away very fast.

 

[jthornton]

Well the Cinnamon Queens are getting used to the new longer perch, no more crowding on each end. There is still one rebel pullet that faces the other way.



JT

 

[SueT]

60º this morning! Our last day before the cold returns....we have walnuts to finish collecting. We will take them to a hulling station and see if we get enuf $ to pay for our new nut rolling tool that makes it so easy to pick up nuts.

 

[SueT]

We filled up the back of the truck with buckets, totes, and bags of walnuts and drove to the hulling station which in our county is at an Amish Farm. Hammon's Black Walnut Co., out of Stockton MO, sets up over 200 hulling sites across the midwest each year and people like us bring their walnuts to sell them.

The family's young son, probably about 12 yrs old, came out to run the hulling machine. It has a gasoline engine with a pull cord. This skinny kid had to pull it about 6 times to get it started. Then the walnuts go up a steep incline into the noisy machine which spits the hulls out one side and the nuts into big net bags on the other side. My DH pulled the walnuts out of the truck and dumped them in the hopper, but the boy did the rest of the work, including lifting these 50+lb bags up onto the scale where he calculated the total using removable weights, then hefted them onto the stack of bags already on pallets. I would have loved to take photos, but it would have been rude. Our entire truckload, after hulling totalled 165 lbs, which brought us $26.50. Not much, but we're picking them up anyway so no one twists an ankle walking in the yard. And I wanted our daughter to have the black walnut experience. It almost paid for our new nut-picker-upper tool.....

If any of you are interested in locating a hulling station in your area, go to
https://black-walnuts.com

 

[jthornton]

Looks like they have one in Dudley, but I didn't get any black walnuts this year for some reason.

JT

 

[SueT]

Looks like they have one in Dudley, but I didn't get any black walnuts this year for some reason.

JT

We seem to only get a good walnut crop every other year. This year wasn't good for persimmons on our land, but I see other people have trees loaded with them.

 

[jthornton]

I have a few persimmon trees but have not looked to see if they had any fruit just been too darn busy... I did manage to move a small mountain of leaves off the new grass so it can get some rain and sun and I was sweating in November!

 

[karenerwin]

We filled up the back of the truck with buckets, totes, and bags of walnuts and drove to the hulling station which in our county is at an Amish Farm. Hammon's Black Walnut Co., out of Stockton MO, sets up over 200 hulling sites across the midwest each year and people like us bring their walnuts to sell them.
View attachment 2405134
The family's young son, probably about 12 yrs old, came out to run the hulling machine. It has a gasoline engine with a pull cord. This skinny kid had to pull it about 6 times to get it started. Then the walnuts go up a steep incline into the noisy machine which spits the hulls out one side and the nuts into big net bags on the other side. My DH pulled the walnuts out of the truck and dumped them in the hopper, but the boy did the rest of the work, including lifting these 50+lb bags up onto the scale where he calculated the total using removable weights, then hefted them onto the stack of bags already on pallets. I would have loved to take photos, but it would have been rude. Our entire truckload, after hulling totalled 165 lbs, which brought us $26.50. Not much, but we're picking them up anyway so no one twists an ankle walking in the yard. And I wanted our daughter to have the black walnut experience. It almost paid for our new nut-picker-upper tool.....

If any of you are interested in locating a hulling station in your area, go to
https://black-walnuts.com

I pass by a walnut buying place on my way to see my son. The place is just north of Liking. I keep toying with the idea of taking our black walnuts there to sell but haven't because I don't figure I will have that much (weight). Also, you are correct, black walnuts are supposed to have good years followed by poor harvest years. I think I read that in the Missouri Conservationist magazine.
A couple of years ago I collected a bunch of ours ( during a good harvest year) and then spent a lot of time trying to crack them open and get out the meat. I ended up using a hammer and some wire cutter pliers. It was a lot of hard work!! Much harder than with English walnuts. I ended up gifting 3 people with half pint jars or 1/4 pint jars of the meat.

 

[SueT]

It's 60 here this morning...our high for the day. Rain hasn't arrived yet.