Harvest Time at the Farm

I think I mentioned a few months ago that my family in the U.S. has a very small farm in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.  There is a farmhouse, an old barn, fields and two woodlots.  We were there this summer re-painting the house, re-siding the barn and picking fresh fruit off the trees in the orchard.

Now it is the end of the year and, while the fruit is long gone, the walnuts are ready to be harvested.  Every year my family puts together a crew of volunteers (there is a great verb in English that best describes this method - we say "to shanghai") and everyone spends the day(s) in Oregon picking the nuts and putting them in boxes to take back to Seattle.

But what happens next?  There is no drying room or unfinished basement in the house in Seattle where the walnuts can be spread out and left to dry before being stored.  This is quite a conundrum but fixable by creative Seattleites who know how to "se débrouiller."

As we speak the walnuts are happily drying on the floor of the library.  Here they are in all their glory.