I've gone nuts!

Finally, the nuts are falling. I went into the woods today with the kids, and we gathered hickory nuts and acorns from some white oaks. Also seedpods from Eastern redbud and honey locust ("A curvy Ipod!" said the 5yo, when she found one.).

A few of the persimmons are on the ground, but they won't really be ready until late fall.

The first hickory nuts we found were still closed in their hulls, we had to open them. Later, we found the nuts from trees closer to the edge of the woods, higher up a slope, and they were fully opened, the white kernel poking out, or sometimes free on the ground; I wonder if the amount of sunlight they receive affects this. Anyway, we wasted some time opening hulls (I won't use those nuts for seed trades), but they will still taste great, and we had fun gathering and sorting, finding leaves and bugs, mushrooms, a turkey feather, and a fairy house at the base of one of the oak trees.

Hopefully, we'll get more chances to gather, maybe even tomorrow. There are huge amounts of nuts everywhere.

The acorns were mostly wormy or rotted, once we cracked them open. A few good ones, and I even tasted a couple, to see how bitter they were. Some of the nutmeats weren't too bad, and the texture reminded me of a cross between other nuts I've had, and a raw potato. If we find enough good ones, we'll leach out the tannin, and try to make acorn flour.

Noticed today that the rose hips in the yard are turning, gathered a ripe one at the baseball park yesterday, looked like a Knockout type rose? Will have to check. The plants were loaded with hips.