October Newsletter
Some thoughts on cycles, things I'm reading, projects I'm working on...
Black Walnuts ~ Making Sand Soup
I’m sitting in my backyard with a rock, a hammer, and bucket full of black walnuts. The walnuts used to hang high in the two trees at the edge of the yard, now they’re being dumped by the hammock-full onto the grass and the forest beyond. I look up to watch the squirrels rejoicing in the abundant branches. Barking and scampering up and down in the midst of their own mini gold-rush.
Last year there were hardly any walnuts. I worried absently about climate change, but the squirrels weren’t bothered. The bur oak that stands close to the house had a mast year and showered down millions of acorns onto the back porch. Maybe the trees work it out amongst themselves and take turns. The squirrels strike it rich either way.
I tried dyeing with acorns last year, and it was a fun experiment, but nothing like the warm browns I get from the walnuts. I probably mourned their absence more than the squirrels did. But this year they’re back at it, nuts rolling around the yard in bunches, too many to count. The long drought we had didn’t slow them down in producing the large green, pungent fruits covering shells so tough and thick you have to really want to get at the nutmeats inside. I’ll work on that later, after they’ve dried for a while. Today I’m after the green husk, full of juglone- a tannin that will stain anything it touches a deep brown. I learned that the hard way the first year I harvested them, my fingers –especially my cuticles—a dead dirt color for days.
I lay each walnut on my chosen rock: a random amalgamation of Ordovician fossils. I can dig these rocks up within the first few inches of soil anywhere in the yard. I hit the walnuts with a hammer, a small one that my ex-husband once patronizingly labeled in Sharpie: “Sara’s Wittle Hammer.” I love it, in spite of or maybe even because of his now-distant dig, long worn away. It’s not heavy, it fits well in my hand, perfect for this type of repetitive work. Each walnut gets a hammer in four turns around until the husk bursts and starts to fall away and I can slip them off with (gloved) fingers. Then into a big pot they all go, a mess of spicy sweet-smelling husks, their brilliant yellow-green juice oxidizing quickly to brown.
Yesterday I let my daughter play with a friend at the park across from her school after picking her up. They’re just about too old for the park, almost too big, almost 12. But they ran around and laughed wildly anyway. I sat with her friend’s mom and her younger son. He’s only just seven and was happily playing in the sandbox. We added leaves and water and anything interesting we could find to his “soup” and I remembered so acutely not only my own child making sand soup, but a young me, gathering items in the yard to mix together into some concoction that my mother or Gobby would faithfully feign sipping and declare “delicious!”
Looking out at the yard, husking walnuts, making some glorified variation on sand soup –now I actually get to cook it!— I’m grateful that I get to return to this place often. Playing with the world around me, adding a little of this and a little of that, hoping for bountiful trees and good weather enough to savor them. I dip skeins of wool yarn into my black walnut soup, lifting each out after a few minutes, long looped strands stained a deep rich golden brown. It’s been a busy season of squirreling away my dyed treasures for winter projects. The frenzy in the branches above chatters along in a sympathetic tune: harvest is here, let us rejoice in the ever-turning year! In these moments spent cracking husks and stirring vats on my back porch, I share small joys with my younger self and, of course, the squirrels.
10/8/2024
Favorite Books this Month:
The Madonna Secret, Sophie Strand -absolutely beautiful re-rooting of the life of Mary Magdalene.
The Book of Delights, Ross Gay -short essays about small delights and life, a little frenetic but a really lovely quick read.
Emergent Strategy, Adrienne Marie Brown -magical non-fiction for personal growth and movement work/transformational politics.
Podcasts/Music:
On Being: On Radical Imagination and Moving Towards Life w/ Adrienne Marie Brown -
Sounds of Sand #6: New Gods at the End of the World w/ Bayo Akomolafe and Sophie Strand
You’re Going to Die, the Podcast: Death is the Problem Solver w/ Sophie Strand
Waxahatchee- new(ish) album Tiger’s Blood
Andrew Bird & Madison Cunningham- new single Crying in the Night
Other News:
My solo show SHEEPSHIFTING is open at the Appalachian Center for Craft in Smithville, TN now through November 17th. Here are a few pics from install:
Thanks for reading!