#white walnut

[dvoeverie-stitches]

Today’s 15 Minutes of Peace

Today was one of the rougher days and I didn’t get out until late.

[vandaliatraveler]

Photos from a stopover at Prickett's Fort State Park after visiting Blake's grandmother. You can search my tumblr for prior posts about the history of the fort and the Job Prickett homestead or read about it here. Broadleaf arrowhead (Sagittaria latifolia) is now blooming along the river and butternuts have started dropping, meaning the end of summer is not far off. Butternut (Juglans cinerea) is similar in appearance and closely related to black walnut, but has oval-oblong fruits rather than round ones.

[toadstoolgardens]

Foraging for Black Walnuts & Butternuts

Black walnut (Juglans nigra) and butternut (Juglans cinerea) trees are members of the walnut family native to the eastern United States and Canada. They both produce fragrant green fruits that contain flavorful walnuts.

Black walnuts and butternuts contain high levels of antioxidants, polyunsaturated fats, vitamin A, iron, and fiber. They also have the highest levels of protein of any tree nut!

Both trees have alternate, once-compounded leaves with 7-17 pairs of pretty light green leaflets. Black walnut trees grow up to 150ft in height, have dark grey-blackish bark with deep furrows, round fruits, and give off a pleasant scent.

Butternut trees are very similar, but the fruits are more elongated. The bark is also lighter and not as tightly furrowed.

Both trees drop their nuts in the fall. They contain tannins, a substance that can be used to make brown dye and will stain! So definitely wear some gloves and clothes you don't mind staining.

1. First you'll need to gather your fallen nuts and remove the husks. This can be done by rolling the walnut under your shoe. If you have a whole bunch of walnuts to husk, you can also drive your car over them to remove all the husks at once lol

2. With your husks removed you're left with walnuts in their shells. Place them in a bucket and give them a rinse to remove the gunk left from from the husks and toss any nuts that float. Floating nuts means the nutmeat didn't form properly.

3. Lay your walnuts out to dry and let them dry for 2-3 weeks. You can dry them outside, on a porch, in a shed, pretty much anywhere as long as they're protected from direct sunlight, rain, and squirrels.

4. Once they're dried it's time to crack them. The nuts are very hard and will need to be cracked with a vise-grip or hammer. Once they crack you can carefully remove the heavenly oily nuts! Walnuts tend to break into pieces while picking them out, just make sure no pieces of shell get mixed with the nut meat.

5. That's it! Your walnuts can be enjoyed raw, toasted, or added to recipes. They can be toasted on a baking sheet in a 375 degree oven for 5-10 minutes or in a frying pan on medium high heat for 5 minutes, stirring frequently. Only toast a single layer of nuts at a time.

The Complete Guide to Edible Wild Plants, Mushrooms, Fruits, and Nuts by Katie Letcher Lyle

[rjalker]

Well now I can actually upload the HD pictures from Skaara so here’s a butternut (juglans cinerea) seedling from.......6/23/20 according to the phone.

I never really thought of where the roots and stuff came from from a walnut but it...makes sense.

Butternuts are related to black walnuts, but they’re a different species. Instead of being round, they’re oval shaped and super spikey, which you can’t really tell here.

LAst picture is one I took by mistake when I almost dropped the phone, you can see the parent tree lol.

This seedling was pulled up because a squirrel planted it somewhere it wouldn’t be able to stay. It got put into a big pot that it gets to have all its own, and you’ll be getting new pictures of it in the spring and summer. 

Not so fun fact: butternut trees are endangered :( good news is the tree in my yard drops a bunch of seeds every year, and I put them in pots, then put them in an old wire dog crate so squirels couldn’t dig them up. In the spring I’ll be giving away seedlings if they get big enough, or I might wait until next year when they’re bigger.

Mainly I want to make sure anyone who takes one knows it’s going to be a full grown tree, so they’ll only take one if they know they are going to have space for it.

Butternuts are a type of walnut, and they’re edible, but I haven’t eaten any yet because I would rather plant them.

There are several areas where black walnut and other trees are allowed to grow wild, so this winter I’m going to seed bomb some of these there and hopefully they survive :)

Maybe I could cover them in clay like with normal seed bombs, and squirrels would leave them alone? Idk...I guess it depends on the squirrel...

if you tag this as anything gross I’m blocking you

[indefenseofplants]

The White Walnut

I must admit, I am not very savvy when it comes to trees. I love and appreciate them all the same, however, my attention is often paid to the species growing beneath their canopy. last summer changed a lot of that. I was very lucky to be surrounded by people that know trees quite well. Needless to say I picked up a lot of great skills from them. Despite all of this new information knocking around in my brain, there was one tree that seemed to stand out from the rest and that species is Juglans cinerea. Afternoons and evenings at the research station were a time for sharing. We would all come out of the field each day tired but excited. The days finds were recounted to eager ears. Often these stories segued into our goals for the coming days. That is how I first heard of the elusive "white walnut." I had to admit, it sounded made up. Its as if I was being told a folktale of a tree that lived in the imagination of anyone who spent too much time in the forest.  Only a handful of people knew what it was. I listened intently for a bit, hoping to pick up some sort of clue as to what exactly this tree was. Finally I couldn't take it any longer so I chimed in and asked. As it turns out, the white walnut is a tree I was already familiar with, though not personally. Another common name for this mysterious tree is the butternut. Ah, common names.  I instantly recalled a memory from a few years back. A friend of mine was quite excited about finding a handful of these trees. He was very hesitant to reveal the location but as proof of his discovery he produced a handful of nuts that sort of resembled those of a black walnut. These nuts were more egg shaped and not nearly as large. Refocusing on the conversation at hand, I now had a new set of questions. Why was this tree so special? Moreover, why was it so hard to find? The white walnut has quite a large distribution in relation to all the excitement. Preferring to grow along stream banks in well-drained soils, this tree is native from New Brunswick to northern Arkansas. Its leaflets are downy, its bark is light gray to almost silver, and it has a band of fuzzy hairs along the upper margins of the leaf scars. Its a stunning tree to say the least.  Sadly, it is a species in decline. As it turns out, the excitement surrounding this tree is due to the fact that finding large, robust adults has become a somewhat rare occurrence. Yet another casualty of the global movement of species from continent to continent, the white walnut is falling victim to an invasive species of fungus known scientifically as Sirococcus clavigignenti-juglandacearum.  The fungus enters the tree through wounds in the bark and, through a complex life cycle, causes cankers to form. These cankers open the tree up to subsequent infections and eventually girdle it. The fungus was first discovered in Wisconsin but has now spread throughout the entire range of the tree. The losses in Wisconsin alone are staggering with an estimated 90% infection rate. Farther south in the white walnuts range, it is even worse. Some believe it is only a matter of time before white walnut becomes functionally extinct in areas such as the Carolinas. No one knows for sure where this fungus came from but Asia is a likely candidate. A sad and all too common story to say the least. It was starting to look like I was not going to get a chance to meet this tree in person... ever. My luck changed a few weeks later. My friend Mark took us on a walk near a creek and forced us to keep our eyes on the canopy. We walked under a tree and he made sure to point out some compound leaves. With sunlight pouring through the canopy we were able to make out a set of leaves with a subtle haze around the leaf margins. We followed the leaves to the branches and down to the trunk. It was silvery. There we were standing under a large, healthy white walnut. The next day we stumbled across a few young saplings in some of our vegetation plots. All is not lost. I can't speak for the future of this species but I feel very lucky to have seen some healthy individuals. With a little bit of luck there may be hope of resistance to this deadly fungus. Only time will tell.  Photo Credit: Dan Mullen (http://bit.ly/2br2F0Z) Further Reading: http://bit.ly/2b8GiMV http://bit.ly/2aLUdMD

[dvoeverie-stitches]

“A soule cake, a soule cake, Have mercy on all Christen soules for a soule-cake.” John Aubrey, 17th century

I found a modern recipe that combines barmbrack and soul cakes. I made saints’ bones yesterday as offering for the Moravian lineage. These today will honor my ancestors from the British and Irish Isles.

The recipe, of course, uses berries and nuts foraged on the Isles so I’m making some changes.

I’m using fresh blueberries that were left behind by our recent houseguests and walnuts, instead of hazelnuts.

When I inspected the walnuts I foraged last month and never got around to hulling, I found that the hulls had shriveled and dried and I could peel them right off! I had stored them on flat surfaces, well apart from each other and only a few had to be tossed for mold. I cracked one open—and perfection!

Instead of using tea to soak the berries and nuts I’m soaking them in my beautyberry wine for a local, foraged berry. And instead of candied ginger and orange peel, I’ll be using flying dragon orange jelly from my foraged oranges.

I thought about putting fortune telling items in the batter and completely forgot!

[dvoeverie-stitches]

Quick late afternoon muscadine and walnut forage

[dvoeverie-stitches]

Smrtná Neděle in Arkansas

Today is Smrtná Neděle (Deadly Sunday), the fifth Sunday of Lent, and a traditional day to drown Morana in the Czech Republic. Since I’m in the Southern US, I work on a different timeline, drowning Morana on Old St. Matthew’s Day (February 24), a day that is considered one of the earliest of the spring feast days in parts of Central Europe—and that feels more seasonally appropriate to my weather and growing season.

So to observe the date I took the doll that will be drowned next year on a pilgrimage to bless the trees that I work with. This is my own personal ritual (not traditional) as is the making of the dolly a year ahead and working with her through the rotating seasons.

I based today’s ritual on the carrying of the líto/litečko (a small decorated tree representing summer) through the village after drowning Morana.