The seasonal reminder came a couple weeks ago. I was visiting a local park and decided to take one of the nature trails for a few hundred yards.
Shhhhhhush. Plop.
I looked around, had a few suspects in mind, but didn’t see anything right away.
A few yards further down the trail I spotted one. Looked up again.
Shhhhhhush. Plop.
That time I saw the culprit. A black walnut. It’s enough for a person to grab their hard hat for a walk in the woods.
This tree, with it’s poised hazardous fruit, lives in St. Louis County.
No black walnut trees featured in the Crystal Springs books. But check out the evergreens and apple trees in Starr Tree Farm and Hiding Places.
Western Wisconsin, especially along the Mississippi, is covered with black walnut trees.Oh yes, the wood is lovely. The nuts provide gorgeous stain. But I have despised them since I first encountered those green bombs. They can dent cars, cause tripping. As they rot on the ground, the enclosing seepage could stain permanently anything it encounter. A fall hobby is breaking the iron hard shell to retrieve the nut’s meat……Don’t get me started on the headache’s I’ve had when I didn’t know a black walnut meat was in that lovely brownie or cookie.