Looking down into the bottom half of a cracked-open black walnut. The very outside of the shell is rough and inky black, and the inside is filled with (sort of) symmetrical chambers. Some tasty-looking walnut "meat" can be seen in all of them.
This glorious thing is half of the contents of a North American black walnut, and the largest bit I was able to get out in one piece. To be honest, it looks like the top half of a human pelvis, or perhaps a fantastical rocket ship blasting off, with two clouds of steam and smoke on either side. There are symmetrical nodes on either side of what could be seen as a vertically oriented almond, or, if we're going with the top-of-a--human-pelvis comparison, the saccral vertebrae. There is a brown skin over the top of the whole thing, with a vertical split in the middle revealing a white inside. There are filaments going through this covering, almost like veins. Life-sized, it is about 1cm tall and 2-3cm from wingtip to wingtip.
And here, we have a plastic round tray (actually a new flower pot dish) filled with the fruits of my labor - the entire bottom is covered in a layer of walnut bits. Most are very small - smaller than ice cream toppings, even, but I sure as heck wasn't going to waste any of that walnutty goodness!
Who knew that shelling black walnuts could be so... cathartic?
I got tired of looking at all of the delicious tennis balls, wasted on the ground, and finally went and bought a gadget designed *specifically* to crack black walnuts.
And... BEHOLD!!!
#BlackWalnuts
#Foraging
#TennisBallSeason