squirrels

Grandmommy called us this morning to tell us that the storm that passed through during the weekend had knocked all of the walnuts out of the trees and that we should go gather them. So we did. Cumorah was concerned about the squirrels at my first mention of the walnuts. "But the walnuts are for the squirrels to eat, if we take them they won't have any to eat." After I assured them that there were plenty for both the squirrels and ourselves, the girls were very excited to bring their buckets down to the walnut trees and start filling them up. Sidon sampled all sorts of tasty rocks, twigs, dirt piles from the gophers, and walnut shells. He got into filling (and emptying) the buckets when he was lucky enough to get close to one. Then he spent some time climbing the steep hillside by the trees, fussing and sliding down the rocks until he finally decided to settle by the trunk of a tree and do some more sampling of inedibles. The girls were troopers and stayed focused for longer than I expected. We filled my five gallon bucket and both the girls' smaller buckets and we were nowhere near finished gathering. That's a lot of walnuts. It will keep Great Grandpa busy for quite awhile with his fancy nutcracker. Cumorah and I went back out with Sam and Amy while the babies were napping and gathered some more. We brought some back to our house to try the whole process out ourselves. I have a batch in the oven baking at a low temperature to kill the bugs before we crack them open right now. Normally I am not a walnut fan, I prefer pecans. But these walnuts are so yummy, they are not bitter at all. The girls have now added walnut trees to their looooooooooong list of specifications for our new house when we move away.