This year has been a banner year for nuts of all types. The acorns are everywhere, our walnut tree that has looked like it's going to die every year since we've lived here produced lots of walnuts, and the hickory trees have spread their nuts all over our yard. We've never tried to harvest the hickory nuts before, but I've heard they're tasty, and there are tons this year, so Gyunay worked on filling the 5-gallon bucket while Emry worked on raking.
We had an impressive amount of nuts, and the boys took turns breaking a few open with a hammer.
Then the three of us tried a hickory nut. The boys instantly ran to spit it out. It gave the mouth a feeling of eating an unripe persimmon, with an unpleasant aftertaste. I went inside and researched hickory nuts to see what we could have done wrong. There are 4 or 5 types of delicious hickory nuts, described as having a slight maple flavor and being well worth the work of getting them out of the shell. However, there is one variety of hickory nut that is inedible: the bitternut hickory. I can guess which kind we have.
The younger kids and I made a weekend visit to my family last weekend. We had a much-overdue family gathering.
It was great to see so many relatives that live close, but we haven't visited in years.
Naturally, we also spent time at Nana and Pa's, and the cousins had a lot of fun.
