My grandparents had butternut trees. Wonderful tasting nuts that take quite a bit of work to get to. As children we would spend our time, when visiting, cracking the nuts on an old stump using a hammer. The hulls can also be used for dying, the same way black walnuts are used.
I grew up in a small town in northern California, and our property had a half-dozen or so black walnut trees -- your post brought back a lot of memories! I can well believe those husks are used to make dye, they did a wonderful job staining skin.... We used to collect gunny-sacks full of nuts to sell to a local feed (?) store, then leave the final partly-full stack at the bottom of one of the trees ... and watch the squirrels spiraling up and down the trunk to collect a nut or two at a time.
So interesting! Someone stopped at our market last week and asked if we knew anyone that bought them. Last year he'd driven a car load to somewhere local and found the money he received for them didn't even cover the gas to get there. Economics can be so fascinating.
My grandparents had butternut trees. Wonderful tasting nuts that take quite a bit of work to get to. As children we would spend our time, when visiting, cracking the nuts on an old stump using a hammer. The hulls can also be used for dying, the same way black walnuts are used.
We purchased a metal walnut cracker a few years ago, but it's quite scary to use!
I grew up in a small town in northern California, and our property had a half-dozen or so black walnut trees -- your post brought back a lot of memories! I can well believe those husks are used to make dye, they did a wonderful job staining skin.... We used to collect gunny-sacks full of nuts to sell to a local feed (?) store, then leave the final partly-full stack at the bottom of one of the trees ... and watch the squirrels spiraling up and down the trunk to collect a nut or two at a time.
So interesting! Someone stopped at our market last week and asked if we knew anyone that bought them. Last year he'd driven a car load to somewhere local and found the money he received for them didn't even cover the gas to get there. Economics can be so fascinating.