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| Bumper Nuts: Silent But Deadly
by sherri_ at 10/12/2009 12:52:28 PM
Wild raspberries & blackberries have bumper years, every other; so do nuts, black walnuts. I've got a buttload of black walnut trees. Really, several dozens.
Last winter I ran out of fallen trees to cut up into firewood, at least on the west 40, so I've had to resort to felling the dead but still standing trees. Just call me Paula Bunyon. 1-2 hours a day, me and Wilson (my chainsaw).
I've now worked my way through 1/3 of the west 40, and after this short coffee break am out to fell another Dead But Still Standing tree; not too bad, it's only about 5" in diameter and maybe 30' tall.
The problem is, it's dead under the canopy of about four black walnut trees, and it's a bumper year for them. I pulled the cart and gear over to the tree before I went on break.
Thud...thud...thud. I must have heard a half dozen nuts plunk the ground on my hike back up the hill. Silent but deadly. Tree branches coming down, you can hear them crack and break. Those nuts give no auditory warning, you just get beaned in the head.
Last fall I was on the northeast 40 gathering shag bark hickory nuts out of the hickory grove and it was cloudy, getting ready to rain. I kept feeling stuff hitting me, I thought it was rain drops falling thru the canopy.
They weren't rain drops, they were green snotty looking things. Accursed tree rats were sitting up in their accursed tree rat nests eating the green hulls off the hickory nuts *they* had gathered and were SPITTING them down on me.
They're big on aerial bombardment, too. Sitting up there in their accursed tree rat nests and hurling whole nuts down on your head. What they really enjoy is breaking the shells off the black walnuts into sharp, hard shards and flinging them down on the ground all along my clothesline, where they know I'll be found barefooted. They spend all winter doing that so they have a nice little mine field set up for me come spring.
I'm heading out to finish cutting for today, and I'm gonna get nailed. Both ways and sideways...from Mother Nature dropping them down on my head and the aerial bombardment of those Tree Rats. They better not spit any on me, black walnut hulls stain.
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