Never had a problem. Just a little walnut scent. But we leave them outdoors for quite some time before they come inside. Sometimes I'll even hang them in the barn for drying. That works so long as you use wire to hang them rather than string or rope. Mice don't climb on wire.
I always wash my walnuts before putting them away... Seriously though, we pick them up, take them over to the barn and dump them out in the lane, drive over them several times, pick them up again, wash them in the cart till most of the discoloration is gone, then put them in a metal 55 gallon drum that has tons of 1/4" or so holes drilled in it, set it up on blocks by the woodshed and put a 80 pound metal plate on top so the critters can't get to them. They must stay out through the winter so they can germinate next spring. Hulling them and washing them keeps them from getting moldy. I take the lid off and roll them around on occasion. They will get planted next spring. I just have to keep the squirrels from getting to them. Grandma used to have Grandpa save the hulls for her and she would make black walnut stain for her craft projects. Gramps would jack up one rear tire of the old Impala about an inch off the barn floor. He would have us kids roll the walnuts under the tire and they would smack on the wall and rip the hulls off of them. He always had onion bags full of them hanging in the basement to crack and eat. We always had some walnuts, but mainly hickory nuts at our house when I was a kid. Black Walnuts are pretty hard to crack compared to the English walnuts that are at the store. PS. I hate when they get moldy or the squirrels get them...
Couple of reasons: #1 it would prevent the tree from spreading any seeds. preventing future trees from growing. #2 I have found the best way to fell them is to girdle them then leave them standing dead for a few years and the thorns begin to fall off and they will rot away on the forest floor after a few years. or you will have a small pile of thorns around the tree to rake up (if you choose to do that) rather than felling the tree and letting the thorns spread all over the ground as it falls. just my .02
Also in our woods of mixed hardwoods, girdling them opens the canopy up for other more favorable species of trees to get more sun and also allows the other trees to get the nutrients it would have used. Like Felter says, let 'em season some standing there for a few years... I don't have time to cut em all. Honey Locust is not a commercially viable tree for logging and our state forester encourages us to "enhance" our woods to be a more productive plot by culling the undesireables and promoting the desireable species. But we still want to maintain diversity. We try to encourage all species that are naturally occuring here. I only have a few invasive species that I truly try to eradicate. Multi-Floral Rose, Grapevine, and Honeysuckle come to mind (there is way too much HL also). Our woods has a couple pasture areas that were let to "go back to nature" in the 50's and 60's and some of the invasive species kind of took over in spots. With the help of the state forester, I'm just trying to get it back more to like it would have been proir to the original clearing. Some of the bottom land along the river and the high incline slopes are original, but all the old growth timber was long gone before we got here. The neighbor's 85 acres of woods hasn't been timbered out in many, many years and was somewhat managed. There are some sweet trees over there... I'd love to see some of those babies laying on my sawmill... I would need a much bigger sawmill...
Sounds good. And yes, walnut makes a great stain! They've been used for that for many, many, many moons. Another good use for the walnut hulls is to soak them in water and then put traps in there. It cleans the traps of all other scents, especially human scent. Needed especially if trapping something like fox.
I was over by the barn splitting the last of the rounds there to put in the back of the truck for traction plowing snow. There was some Box Elder, Sugar Maple, Pin Oak, and Honey Locust. One of the small rounds of HL I split had a thorn inside like Felter was talking about. There were a few more later, but this is the only one I got a picture of. I'm liking this light on the truck so I can work in the evenings now. I was over there working till the knee started complaining to get a beer! I'm hoping that by the time Spring gets here I'll be back up to full speed. I got about 800 lbs. or so of splits thrown in the truck, just guessing though. It looks like enough to help.
ya those thorns in the wood are weird aren't they? I've seen them growing at every different angle in the wood. if someone told me that happens I wouldn't believe them.
