Sept 22nd – Oct 2nd • Black Walnuts Falling on Our Heads

We are getting in the groove of living in Iowa, but the yard is filled with these green-looking fruit things and we couldn’t figure out what they were. The fruits were turning from green to black and falling by the dozens daily. Noah was surfing the Facebook marketplace for deals when he came across someone selling black walnuts, he saw the picture of them and that was when we realized what they were. We have had hundreds of black walnuts all over our yard. Needless to say, the chipmunks in this area are the biggest and fattest ones I’ve ever seen. I’m going to say that is because of the plethora of black walnuts in our yard.

Kevin was gone on one of his tractor runs, I think he was in Arizona this time. While we stayed home to get the yard cleaned up of all these black walnuts. We spend hours gathering them and researching how to process them online. We did walnut stomping to get the husk loosened, and used gloves to remove the husk as they stain your hands. Then washed the walnuts and laid them out in the garage to dry. Lita is allergic to tree nuts so she could only help a little and then couldn’t be around it. John’s favorite part was cracking them open and eating them. Malachi made us some recipes with them but since Lita has allergies to nuts it makes it hard to have them in things. We still have bags of dried black walnuts in our garage and have no idea what to do with them all. They are really good for you but they don’t taste like regular walnuts at all so I don’t care to eat them.

Here is one of the many stray dogs that follow Kevin along his traveling journeys and the view through Arizona.

One thing about having a house with a large yard is the work it entails. Somedays I do miss just living at a campground and not having to do yardwork, but on others, I’m thankful we can have a garden and space for the kids to play in. Kevin and I have been tossing back and forth being on the road full time again now that we don’t have to have an address since he has gotten his green card. But there really are pros and cons to having an actual location that we haven’t totally figured out which is the best. Right now we are enjoying where we are at and the fact that we can still travel as much or as little as we want. But we both agree we just want to travel as much as we can. Life is short and our kids are growing up way too fast. Before we know it they will be moving out and all these moments will be passed by. We don’t want to miss any opportunities of sharing these memories without children.

After a long week of processing all these black walnuts and getting the yard cleaned up for another mow, we decided to make some homemade sushi. Although sushi isn’t the same as it is in Hawaii, we always enjoy making a big batch and filling up on our randomly made sushis. Everyone in the family loves sushi except Kevin so we try to make it when he is on the road. Here is Malachi making us a batch and getting ready for a sushi supper after the hard work of washing his black walnuts.

We ended our night with a good bowl of Hurricane Popcorn which is popcorn with, furikake and arare. One of my favorite Hawaiian snacks, that brings me back to things we ate while growing up in Hawaii. My kids have such an appreciation for all different ethnic foods and it makes me happy they are willing and want to try everything that is put in front of them. Being a foodie family is fun!