Walnuts

Walnuts are back from the dryer!
A beautiful harvest this year.

100's of pounds of walnuts....done!

How many of these buckets of nuts have we picked in the past two weeks?

1000's?

Maybe it just feels like 1000's.

No more walnuts!

We both work really hard gathering the walnuts.

We get walnut stained fingers,

walnut stained knees,

and walnut stained clothes.

Now the walnuts are off to the dryers.

Should be home on Thursday.

2.25 per pound.

We have someone who would buy all of the nuts, but he will just ship them to China.

There they would be shelled and packaged,
in order to send them back to the US

to be sold in little cellophane bags at your local Wal-mart or Kroger store.

We don't want to be a part of that process.

So instead we sell them to folks who want 

local,

natural,

real

food.

We end up trading,

giving,

sharing,

the nuts with others.

There is something that is very gratifying about the whole process,
and also addictive.

Thank you big old wonderful walnut trees!

The Weekend in Review

A nice bunch of coho salmon caught outside of the mouth of the Columbia on Sunday.  The first time that we have "crossed the bar" not to be confused with entering a bar.  Thanks to our hosts, Terry and Leonard, on the "On Call".  We had a great trip.  The fish are in the freezer.

We got home last night to find that one of the branches on the walnut trees had crashed.

 I would have liked to have been here to witness and hear the crash of this limb. Our friend Nanette was lazing in the hammock at the time.  What a wake up!

The trees are loaded this year. We should have enough to commercially dry and sell.

And on a different note.....

We have five new baby bluebirds.  These little guys were born last Thursday, so are less than a week old.  This is the second clutch this summer.  The first clutch babies (now adolescents) are about 6 weeks.  They help to feed and clean up after these little guys, learning how to be good bluebird parents.

And on an even more different note:

This most wonderful beaded bag has come to live here.  Thanks to my sweet sister over at Frost Creek.

Here's hoping your fishing is good, no branches fall on your head, and that good things come to live with you.