Walnuts and camping

We have a huge black walnut tree on the back property. We've been trying to figure out how to save the walnuts. From what we could tell from the internet, you pick them up once they fall off the tree, peel off the green hull and meaty stuff, then dry the nut for a few weeks before cracking the nut and removing the 'nut meat' or something. Here are the nuts after being rinsed and laying out to dry in the basement.


And here are Roger's fingers after peeling a hundred or so walnuts, even though he was wearing two pairs of gloves. Our fingers still have black streaks on them.


We went camping over the weekend. It was a bit chilly. We stuffed the trunk and backseat full of stuff, and there was about one square foot left in the backseat to stuff Dia. It was a 30 minute drive to the campsite, and Dia was pretty resigned.



Here she is with her backpack on and her crate covered with a blanket. She had to sleep in the crate the first night, although Roger compromised and let her sleep in the tent the second night... the low was 35 degrees. She slept really good in the tent... she curled up next to us and became deadweight for the next 8 hours.