Kai's daycare has been doing a unit on trees, so they asked the parents to bring in a story about their favourite tree to share with the class. Coincidentally, it is the time of year when walnuts begin falling in our front yard. I decided to finally harvest some of the walnuts this year, and with Kai's help I created a ten page photo book detailing the full process.

Kai's teachers loved it, and they especially loved this photo of Kai collecting walnuts for us to eat.

This year I did the following:

1. Chose ten walnuts from the ground. Not too firm, but not too soft.
2. Used a knife to remove the outer husk. This is the messiest part.
3. Washed the walnuts in a bucket of water. Out of the ten walnuts, 9 of them sank and one of them floated. Discarded the floating one.
4. Dried the walnuts over a 40 watt light bulb for about a week.
5. Used strong pliers to crack the walnuts open. A regular nutcracker won't work for black walnuts.
6. Ate them! After all that effort, Kai did not want to try them. Maybe next year.

Technical Details: This photo was taken with my 5D Mark II + EF 24-105L at 28mm, ISO 800, f/8 for 1/40th of a second.