Why I Oughta...

Back in November, I posted a couple of photos and talked about the process of turning a collection of Black Walnuts into a homemade 1 scratchmade wood stain.  In that post , I laid out the steps from collecting the walnuts to bottling the stain - and about midway is where we pick things up in this post.  Six weeks of macerating in the five gallon bucket with a little bit of evaporation ended up yielding about 3 gallons or so of material.  A quick stir with a stick every once in a while and I had a thick, black syrup.  Along with a mass of walnut hulls and bits. I grabbed a piece of cheesecloth that Nat had on hand and a couple of rubber bands and donned a set of disposable gloves.  Knowing this is, indeed, stain, I opted to deal with the process out in the yard.  You can see the setup below.  The five-gallon bucket on the right, topped with cheesecloth strainer.  A smaller, one gallon finish bucket in the middle and a couple of pints of rubbing alcohol (91%) to thin the syrup out.  I

In our backyard, we have a couple of large, mature Black Walnut trees .  Three large ones inside our property line and a massive one just behind our fence in an easement.  They were here when we arrived and they'll be here after we leave.  Each Fall, they drop walnuts.  A.LOT.OF.WALNUTS.  This presents quite a feast to the critters around our yard as they peel them open, scatter the husks and try to get to the nut.  The squirrels - in particular - seem quite fond of these black walnuts.  They're called Black Walnuts, but when they drop they're actually green . Now, if you go read on the Web, you'll find that many people talk about how Walnut trees produce something called juglone , which *could* cause injury to other plants, vegetables and some trees and shrubs. I say COULD because it seems that it is a commonly accepted notion by many, but there's still some dispute about whether the damage is true . One thing *is* clear: the trees, do, indeed produce juglone.