m-lewis's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Black Gold The tips of my fingers are black and there is a distinctive bitter smell radiating from them. Way back when, my father-in-law planted an orchard on five acres of land. And in the seventies,Dwain built our house in the midst of the orchard. The trees have, over time, matured and become huge. In the spring narrow yellow-green leaves poke out from the ends of each limb in bunches. Web worms love them, and always manage to spin their tangled knotty webs in the summer when we're too hot to care. And by October, when there are no leaves left, baseball size balls appear where leaves had once been. Then they begin randomly falling to the ground. Sometimes I wake In the night to hear them clunking onto the roof of the house. When I’m outdoors, I have to watch out not to get hit in the head. My fifteen minute chore today was spent outside. The air felt nippy this morning as I picked thick green balls from the ground and tossed them into a bucket – although next time, I’m going to rake them into a pile first. I’m being a good steward of the earth, in my opinion. I’m not letting good food go to waste. The red fox squirrel I scared away raced into a nearby tree and yapped at me the entire time. After all, in his opinion, I was taking away his food source. I told him I planned to leave enough for him and his family, but he fussed at me anyway. All over the Ozarks companies have signs up saying they are willing to pay good money for this stuff. In fact, they depend on it. People around here call it “black gold.” We call them black walnuts. A friend of mine told me that once upon a time, when money was in short supply, she and her family went into the woods every day and collected enough walnuts to pay for their children’s Christmas presents. In fifteen minutes I picked enough walnuts to fill a five gallon bucket. Not bad! 9:56 a.m. - 2006-10-06 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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