Shaking my nuts

A brief sojourn on the farm in between autumn birding trips and there are plenty of jobs to catch up on.
A while back I harvested all the cobnuts. For those who don't know, these are the cultivated equivalent of hazelnuts which produce a crop much earlier in their lives than their wild ancestor. The crop is heavier and the nuts larger too.
I planted my cobnuts six years ago and I have been getting an ever-increasing harvest for several years now. For the first time this year my red cobnuts have produced nuts too. They are not so prolific but the trees are beautiful with their maroon leaves.
People often ask when to harvest cob/hazelnuts and I would say to harvest when they start dropping to the floor, unless you have hungry squirrels or jays in which case go earlier. They are delicious eaten 'in the green' but should dry well enough to store for longer.

Cobnuts are experts at hiding under leaves, so much of my harvesting is done by feel. However many times you go round the tree, you always find another one hiding away.

This year I went for the shaking method too, giving the whole tree a good old rattle. This dislodged maybe a third of the nuts, falling all over the ground and my head!

In all I collected two large baskets of nuts, then I disappeared off birding and left Sue to sort them all out as usual. She spent a couple of long evenings taking off the outer husks. At this stage they begin to look like the hazelnuts we buy in their shells at Christmas. Some have almost dried whereas others are still quite green.

A night in the dehydrator drives off any moisture to prevent them rotting. Alternatively you could spread them out on a mesh in a dry, airy place (easier said than done).

Sue also picked most of the almonds as their soft husks were starting to open and some had already dropped to the ground.

And so to this last week and my return from my birding exploits. I had a long list of harvesting and tidying jobs, but this was interrupted when I found a whole load more almonds under the tree. There were more still on the tree, so a good old shake of the branches had them clattering down around me. I then collected them up - over 500 in all.



Taking off the hulls was pretty easy and they went to the sheep who devoured them with gusto.

Next on the harvesting list were the beans for drying but, half way through collecting, news came through of a bird of hen's teeth level rarity on North Ronaldsay - an adult male Siberian Blue Robin.

Only the 4th Siberian Blue Robin ever

recorded in Britain (and the first adult male).

Two were dead and all the other three failed

to do the decent thing and hang around

till the second day (including this one).

Harvesting was abandoned as I embarked on a flurry of phone calls. Sue put a pizza in for me to replace the slow cooked lamb which she was lovingly preparing.
An hour later I was heading off into the night. 588 miles to the Scrabster ferry!

Kirkwall harbour, Orkney - as close as we got

30 hours later I was pulling back onto the farm in the middle of the night. Mission failed!
But some opportunities are so few and far between that you just have to take the chance when they come up. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

If I didn't have that attitude I would probably still be stuck in an unfulfilling life back in London.