About a month ago, I’d finally had it with the remaining black walnuts in my attic. I couldn’t take the guilt I felt from hoarding these practically uncrackable nuts, robbing the poor squirrels of their winter sustenance. I could hear the nuts up there through the floor boards at night – directly over our bedroom no less – thumping. The Tell-Tale Nuts.

Feeling completely defeated and annoyed at all the work involved in getting these dang nuts open, I decided that it made the most sense to give what remained of my stash back to the expert nut crackers.

Exercise Trickery

April 6th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Motivation - (5 Comments)

I woke up today with plenty of time to exercise before the husband left for work – but I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my bad self on this dark, cold and damp Wednesday morning.

I laid there for a while pondering my options. Head to the gym to run on the treadmill? (Again?) Head to the gym and just walk on the treadmill? (Again??) Run outside in the sunless, frigid air? (Again!!?)

For those of you who could not care less about opening black walnuts, you are welcome to disregard this post.

For the rest of you (three) folks who found your way here by googling “how to open black walnuts“, this post is for you.

(For those you that found your way here by googling “dinosaur eating a barbie”, I’m still working on that post. And if you’re the one that wondered “is it ok to include lettuce spines in a salad”, the answer is still “no”.)

Tough Nut to Crack

February 27th, 2011 | Posted by Alison Spath in Life - (35 Comments)

If you’ve been following along, you may recall that I recently spent some time hulling black walnuts.

These black walnuts have spent the winter curing in my cool, dry attic. Rumor has it that black walnuts are really hard to open. Rumor has it this would be why I’ve been none too eager to get cracking here.

Black Walnuts Curing in the Attic

Come to find out that when you harbor black walnuts and don’t crack them, you’ll be haunted by backyard squirrel ghosts; the lost souls of squirrels who died from winter starvation because you deprived them of all the food they would have otherwise stored for hibernating.

What a Nut Job

October 17th, 2010 | Posted by Alison Spath in Life - (12 Comments)

“What the hell are those things?” you’re surely saying out loud right now. I don’t blame you. About a month ago I was saying that exact same thing because I didn’t know either.

Gathered

Turns out we’ve got a black walnut tree at this here city residence of ours. Right about this time of year, said black walnut tree drops about 643 black walnuts into my tiny back yard. My hyperbolic guesstimative calculations figure that’s about 25 walnuts per square foot of green space.

Black Walnut Tree