Monday, October 20, 2014

I'm picking up Free Money off the ground

Yep......free money.....just pick up black walnuts.

I spent the last 3 mornings picking up black walnuts. we have 7 trees....so there are lots of them. 

There is a business in town that buys them from you. i had never sold them there before so decided to give it a try.  

My first trip had my truck bed full with 15 five gallon buckets and 7 milk crates.  my shoulders were sore from all that picking. 

But, i had enough black walnuts to make 2 more truck loads....and i didn't want to drive to town 2 more times. so, i got the bright idea to just dump them all in the back of Jim's truck. works for me. hahaha  so this is my second load.


You just back your truck up to the hopper and let down the tail gate.  they put in a couple of boards to funnel the nuts into the hopper.



Then you just shovel them out. once they start the machine up, it goes pretty quickly. it sucks them up as fast as you shovel them into the hopper.



There is a conveyor belt that pulls them up and into the machine. the machine is full of chains that knock the hulls off. the hulls continue up the conveyor belt and dump the hulls into the back of a dump truck.


The walnuts are kicked out a chute at the back. there is a man there that bags them as they come out. each bag holds 40 to 50 pounds of walnuts, depending on their size. i found the whole operation fascinating.


Then the bags get loaded on the scale to see how much you have. 


This is the truck that they are filling. people bring black walnuts in here every day. they accept walnuts for the month of October. then they get taken to the Hammond Black Walnut Company.....where the walnuts make their way to the grocery stores for about $7.49 for 8 ounces. I'm sure Hammonds is happy that the little country towns are collecting walnuts for them.


I wound up with 515 pounds of black walnuts for my two trips to town.... and got $72.10 for my trouble. not bad for doing nothing but picking up walnuts. i still could have filled a few more buckets, but they were in the sticker bushes and i didn't want to fight them. 

I think i shall do this next year, too. but before the walnuts fall, i shall clear out all those sticker bushes and anything in my way of picking up walnuts. and....we have a neighbor down the road who has a whole grove of walnuts trees and doesn't pick his up. i'm going to see if i can have his, too. that should at least double my profits. 

So, clear my calendar for the month of October next year. i'll be picking up walnuts. 


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