Nuts!

We don't have a chestnut tree, but there are some in the village, one next to the second store, the lady was sweeping them in a pile and off the pavement yesterday. Today they were all over again, when Garry and I walked to the post office. Still haven't got our letter in the mail, it was closed at eleven am (the sign says 2:30). The kids in the village pick them up, I don't know if they are used for anything, maybe for throwing.


For the last month or so we have seen some people gathering walnuts in the trees lining the highway. Most of the trees are chestnuts, but there are some wlanut trees. Since no one owns them they are fair game for gleaners. They were easy to spot as we drove by, someone would have a long pole to hit the nuts out of the trees and they would have buckets or bags to fill up. I don't know if they were keeping them to eat or selling them. Uncracked walnuts are selling for a dollar a kilo. At the market they sell whole and half cracked nuts and even sell the little divider piece in the center of the nut- apparently for use as a dye.

Lately it has been more fall-like, sometimes you need a sweatshirt on, and Garry has been picking up orecki (walnuts). Today he had Maxim up in the trees shaking them down, so he brought buckets and buckets inside. He had put them in a container outside but it turns out that the dogs Polo and Mint will chew them open and eat the nuts!



One problem with picking up walnuts is it turns your hands black and it doesn't wash off! Check out Garry's hands, and this was after he washed the milk jugs out with some super soap. Maxim's girlfriend teaches at the school, she has the youngest students and the boys' hands are all black from nut picking. Apparently someone complained that she should make them wash their hands when they went somewhere.




Tonight Garry started cracking walnuts, with a hammer like last year, and drying them in the oven. It's rather noisy, maybe we should invest in a nutcracker. The milker ladies can't figure what Garry is going to do with all the walnuts. Maxim told them he just really likes nuts. I'll have to find the sugared and spicy nuts in the crockpot recipes now.