Pickling

Well, according to my favourite weather site, it was going to rain at two this afternoon so I decided to fire up the wood-stove to do some washing up and to prepare the green walnuts for pickling.

June, a photo by A John Walters on Flickr.

I haven't checked to see if I've written about this before but the process involves pricking the green walnuts and then soaking then in brine for about two weeks (changing the water at least once). Walnut juice stains just about everything it touches, including plastic so I wore gloves. Took about 2 hours, including coffee breaks, to do them all. It'll be worth it though, I thoroughly enjoyed last years which is why I picked so many this year.

2pm came and went with no rain and the forecast changed to the evening. Typical.

Strimming

Did some strimming today. I noticed that the Walnut tree's fruit were a lot bigger than last time I looked, in fact they looked a bit bigger than the lot I harvested last year for pickling. When the strimmer ran out of petrol I took the opportunity of harvesting the walnuts. I got about 8L (last year I had 3 half-litre jars of pickled walnuts so this is a big increase). I just got all the ones in easy reach thinking that I can get the rest as walnuts when they fall off later in the year.

I then went back to strimming after mixing up a fresh batch of 2 stroke fuel and oil.


It was only after I finished that I realised that today was Friday and not Thursday so I wouldn't be going to Körmend tomorrow after all. Bugger! Means I'll have to pedal there Sunday to get some cash.

I got a nice collection of bites and nettle stings, hard to tell which is which to be honest.

Painting Finished

After_1, a photo by A John Walters on Flickr.

After_2, a photo by A John Walters on Flickr.

Much Better!