Ahhhh, I can smell the pungent, spicy aroma of black walnuts again. That smell is about to intensify at our place because, if it's anything like other years, there will be tons upon tons of them sitting in bags here waiting for a semi to come pick them up to take them to Stockton, Missouri.
We are what they call a black walnut buying/hulling station for the Hammons Company and have been since 1994. What exactly does that mean, you may wonder? Here's a little blurb from Hammons themselves that might shed some light: "Black walnuts grow wild throughout the Midwest and East-Central United States. Each year we purchase millions of pounds of nuts from approximately 250 buying locations in a 16-state area. The black walnut harvest is one of the few crops still picked by hand. Black walnut harvesting occurs in the fall, when the wild nut crop is hulled, bagged and sold to a network of buying stations, or "hullers," for Hammons Products Company. Black walnuts are a hands-on product, from the planting of the black walnut tree to the harvest and final processing of this wildly delicious delicacy. As black walnut products continue to grow in popularity, we will continue to dedicate the time and research to make sure our supply keeps up with demand."
In a nutshell (ha!), people from the community gather the black walnuts out of their yards and bring them to us. They back up to the hulling machine, feeding their nuts into a hopper which takes them by conveyor up through the machine where the soft part on the outside is beat off by chains. The hulled walnuts are then spewed out into mesh bags; they are in turned weighed. This year for their efforts, the people who bring them will then get paid 11 cents per pound for the hulled nuts (*this price can change depending on word from Hammons).
As it happens, sometimes people won't want their black walnuts and will ask if our children will clean them out of their yards. And sometimes our family will go around looking for places where might gather up nuts that home owners don't want. I love to see the looks on people's faces when we pull up and ask them if we can pick up the nuts from their yard. Typically it's an older gentleman who has worked himself into a real sweat. He'll be pausing a moment to rest, leaning on his rake handle as we drive up. He'll get a look of mixed surprise and caution on his face after we ask him if we can take all the walnuts out of his yard. "You mean, you WANT to pick these nuts up?" He's sure there has to be a catch that a passel of little boys are anxious to do that for him without pay.
After he's assured we really mean it (we often can prove it by the stains on our hands from the last place), he'll let out a hearty, "Be my guest!" Often as not, the guy will tell us to go on up to Hal's place and clean up his yard, too. This is win-win. Their yards are cleaned up for free and my little boys can sell the nuts to their dad.
We've had quite a few memorable moments in our years of doing this. I recall a particularly busy Saturday when I wheeled our old pick up into the drive with several young boys aboard. We'd just gotten done mounding nuts from some yards into the truck bed and I was tired. I figured I would just go to the house and let the boys hull the nuts after they were through with the people waiting in line. I proceeded to pass the rather lengthy line of vehicles lining our lane. As I approached the front of the line in my effort to get past, I was waved down rather enthusiastically by an older man. I finally got what he was saying....er, yelling. He was yelling, "Hey!!! NO CUTS!!! You have to wait your turn!!" I hadn't meant to cause any needless duress for those in front of me. They didn't know me. I just called out the window, "I live here!" Hopefully he understood.
I think we've seen nuts show up in just about every sort of conveyance one might imagine. One of the funniest was the time a guy backed up to the huller in a little car. Paul went out to assist him only to find out he had chucked his walnuts loose all over the inside of his car. Even funnier was when he returned the next year. Paul greeted him by name and the man was so surprised that he was remembered.
There was an old couple who were in their 70s who would bring several loads a day during one of our first years. The man and his wife would drive the countryside from hither to yon picking up nuts wherever they could find them. They brought in an average of half a ton of nuts (after hulling) a day. We paid them over $2,000 that year!
What happens to the nuts after they've been hulled and bagged here? When we get about 45,000 pounds of them, a semi comes to pick them up and we load it for them. We use the skid steer to get them to the truck, but the stacking of the bags into the truck is done pretty well by hand.
In the spring of 2006 our family took a trip and stopped at the Hammons processing facility. They gave us a tour to show us what they do. It looks a lot like a moderately sized feed mill with drying bins. They said it better than I could, so I'll let you read their synopsis:
"When the inshell nuts arrive at Hammons, they are cleaned, then dried.
Black Walnut shells are extremely hard, so we must use nutcrackers unique to the Black Walnut industry. The nuts are run between large steel wheels that crack the shells.
Then they pass through another series of rollers with saw-like teeth that separate the nutmeats from the shells.
Once separated from their shells, the nut kernels are graded into various sizes. Latest-technology electronic sorting machines remove any remaining shell pieces or discolored kernels.
Finally, a trained inspector makes a visual inspection, to ensure that the final product meets Hammons` high quality standards. Only then are the nutmeats boxed, sealed, and sterilized to meet quality specifications. Producing the highest quality Black Walnuts in the world is a Hammons tradition that brings you the best product."
Sometimes people will bring their black walnuts to us to have us run them through the huller. Many people tell us that they're glad to give us a little something for this service because it beats running them over with their car in their driveway! As for cracking them, a lot of people tell us they use a hammer. Lehman hardware sells a decent cracker that's made by a local Amishman.
It seems that black walnuts run in cycles of bumper vs meager crops. By the looks of the trees we've noticed, it's going to be a fair season this time. The biggest season we ever had netted us 130 tons and the smallest was a mere 4 tons! We will be running the season from October 3-31 this year. Monday-Saturday, daylight hours.
~Colleen
