Nuts over walnuts

          Black walnut trees seem to be in a state of flux most of the year. They are either growing leaves and nuts or shedding them all spring, summer and fall. The spring nut drop is annoying, but not as bad as late summer and fall. By this time of year they are all over the ground and mowing grass sounds like a shooting gallery at the fairgrounds as the blades ping the walnuts anywhere around any of the walnut trees. Worse than that, the walnut tree by the garage drops its nuts on the tin roof of the garage and it sounds like higher caliber gun shots going off. The nuts that miss the roof end up all over the driveway and when they are run over, they explode and make the tires turn black, which in turn makes black tire tread marks on the concrete floor of the garage. The squirrels spend all of late summer and fall burying their nuts. As you well know, squirrels do not have a very large brain, so they forget just where they buried their nuts (now I understand why some guys are called squirrelly). Therein lies the problem. Every year those unclaimed nuts sprout and more walnut trees start growing. When we moved here there were just five mature walnut trees producing nuts. Since I quit brush hogging the pastures 20 years ago and let nature take its course, there are more than 100 black walnut trees growing in various stages all over the farm. I should not complain too much because in another 20 or so years there will be enough mature walnut trees that I could sell them for timber and have more cash than I paid for the place 26 years back. The going rate for a straight, mature walnut trees these days can be $1000 or more. Of course the fly in the ointment here is I will not be around in 20 years unless you count ashes in an urn as being around. There is a problem with harvesting the trees; the harvesters only take the trunks of the trees, leaving a lot of branches all over the farm. But then one could cut the big branches and sell that as firewood. The picture below is an example of how many  walnuts can fall in just a small sector of the tree's circumference every day now.