IT’S THAT TIME OF YEAR AGAIN!!! No,
not school starting.... nope, not football season starting. (although.... yea
for football!!!) The dogwood leaves are
starting to turn, the fields of corn and grains are starting to dry up, ready
for the harvest. Hay bales, or the long
rows of grasses that will soon be baled, lay in fields dotting the landscape. Gardens are nearly spent, and farmers are
starting their Fall routines to get them “tucked away” for the winter
months.
 |
| Hickory Nuts in the Tree |
These, however, are merely signs of what time of the year it is..... It’s Nut Gathering Time..... time to head to
the woods and gather nuts before the squirrels get them all. Or that’s what we did when we were kids. This was the time of year when Daddy or
Granddaddy (sometimes both at once) would take us on long walks in the woods to
the same trees and bushes that we went to each year. Hickory nuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, wild
pecans, black walnuts... those were what we were after. This was also the time of year that
Grandmother started checking the persimmon tree to see when the persimmons
would be ripe for Persimmon Pudding... and hers was the best I’ve ever tasted. Her recipe can be found here, on my Southern Recipes page.
Nut gathering meant long walks in the woods, and time for tales from
Granddaddy as he told about the sawmill he used to have. It was a mobile one, so he could hook it up
to his team of horses, or to the tractor, and move it from place to place, as
needed. He once had it on the very spot
where Mom’s house sits today. One of the
places he had it was in what we referred to as “the back field”. The back field was always our destination,
more or less, and we wandered throughout the woods from there.
Getting the nuts was only half the task.
After gathering the nuts, we had to husk them out and crack them, to get
to the “goodie” inside. Some were much
much harder to crack out than others. Hickory
nuts and Black Walnuts, were the two most notorious for being “a hard nut to
crack”. The nuts would be used in all
sorts of things during the wintertime... cakes, cookies, and sometimes even Jell-O
salad sorts of dishes.
 |
| The Hickory Nut Cracking Rock |
Here’s the thing though... hickory nuts are really hard to crack out...
and require a hammer and a rock. Yes, I
said rock. We have a special rock that’s
been used for generations, just for cracking out hickory nuts (see photos). The hickory nut rock that used to be at
Grandmother’s house, but now sits in Mom’s front yard, was nearly always used. You could use a flat iron turned upside down
and held between your knees, if you just HAD to do this inside for some reason,
but the hickory nut rock was preferred (besides, doing this part inside always made
such a mess)... and there was a reason.
 |
| One of the indentations on the rock. |
There
are divots in it from being used for hickory nuts for so many years (see
photo). Those little indentations hold
the nut still while you take aim at it with a hammer. Even the husk on a hickory nut is hard to get
off with just your fingers, so husk and all, the nut was placed in the
divot. Several meaningful whacks with a
hammer later, and you had the husk off.
A few more well placed whacks, and the nut would crack open. The cracked pieces were placed in a dishpan
or bucket for the next person to take a nut pick and pry out the pieces of
nut. The process was repeated until all
the hickory nuts were cracked. All this
occurred under the big maple tree in Grandmother’s side yard. So it was another of those times when tales
were spun as work was done. It was also
a time when we could begin to enjoy the cooler days of a Fall season just
around the corner.
 |
| Black Walnuts Still in the Husk |
Now, cracking out Black Walnuts was another difficult task. It was the husks of those nuts that was the
most difficult, not because of how tough they were (and they weren’t/aren’t
very tough), but because of how messy they were/are. There is a reason they are called “black”
walnuts. The husks will stain anything
they touch the color black. Work gloves
were worn when working with those nuts.
I was not surprised to find out that the husks themselves were once used
for dying cloth a grey or black color.
Once the husks were off, then the tough interior had to be cracked. Daddy used an anvil, but the old hickory nut
rock was used sometimes as well. Again,
once they were cracked, the pieces were put into dishpan or bucket for the next
person to pick out the pieces to save for use later. Black walnuts have a strong flavor. You either like them or you don’t... it’s one
of those types of flavors. They aren’t
like the English Walnuts that we use in baking today. Cookies and cakes were often the end result
of all the effort that went into getting the black walnuts.
 |
| Treasures from The Past |
Daddy used to take a few of the black walnuts (and
sometimes peach seeds) and carve them sometimes. I have a tiny basket and a teeny monkey that
are part of my “collection of precious things from the past.” Those were made from peach seeds (I think)...
at least the little basket was... not sure about the monkey.
Over the years, the trees came to us, so to speak. Daddy planted several wild pecan trees in the
yard when we were little, and which bear lots of nuts each year, so that’s
pretty much the extent of our nut gathering nowadays. My sister has a chestnut tree in her yard,
and lots of black walnut trees planted beside her driveway. When I went to visit my oldest son at his new
house in Tennessee this past summer, I noticed that ALL the trees in his yard
were well established hickory nut trees.
So now, if we want any of those, all we have to do is get him to save us
some each year.
Every season has a meaning deeper than just how cold or hot it is, when you
live in the country. Spring is for
planting, and dreaming of what can be.... Summer is the time for tending the
plants as you watch them grow, harvesting and putting up the vegetables as they
begin to come in from the gardens, and cooling off under the shade of a tree on
a hot day. Fall is the time for final
harvests, making jams and jellies, harvesting nuts, scuppernongs and muscadines,
and persimmons and preparing them to be saved for winter. Winter is a time for rest from gardening and
harvesting and preserving... it’s a time of planning for the coming year... a
time for celebrations and feasts. It’s a
time of reflection on the past year, learning from mistakes, and enjoying the
fruits of our labors.
It’s a cycle built on sustenance, but becomes more than that. There’s a comfort and satisfaction that comes
from it as well... not just one that means food (or treats) on the table, but
one that goes soul deep. It’s a rhythm
built over generations... part of our internal clocks. The years tick by, but within them we move to
the beat of an age old clock, telling us it’s time to plant, time to sow, time
to reap, time to harvest. It’s the drum
beat that we, here in the country, march through our lives to. It's such a deep part of who and what we are, that even if we move away, we will often find ourselves going through the motions (on a smaller scale, of course), that have been part of our heritage for generations.
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the
heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck
up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to
build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
a time to
embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to
speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 (KJV)
No comments:
Post a Comment