Our awesome walnut tree.

Our walnut tree in all it's glory.

Close-up of the leaves and an unripe walnut.

Our walnut tree must be about 50 years old.

It creates a spacious environment, under it's

canopy of leaves. (Photos taken-Aug 15/11)

It's the beginning of October and truly feels like fall.

Spike and I collected the 1st batch of nuts from under the walnut tree.

I don't think they fell down on their own, because the squirrels have been up in the tree, chewing the stems, dropping them to the ground-the husks are green and very hard. I'll let them sit in a covered bucket for a few days and hope they soften up, so it's easier to get at the walnuts inside.

The squirrels are upset that I am gathering their nuts, but I don't care, they just bury them all over our yard, and I want to get our fair share. Every year I have to compete with those darned rodents- they love walnuts too… oh yeah, so do the bears! They'll eat them… husk and all!

This big old tree is a lot of work in the fall.

Any day now, all those leaves will suddenly start dropping until they are all on the ground, it only takes a couple of days.

It's pretty cool actually, and sounds like rain falling, since the leaves are substantial.

The walnuts of course will be dropping too and it's not a good idea to hang out under the tree. They hurt. They also make a lot of noise when they hit our garden shed.

Too bad the leaves are no good for composting,

so we either burn them, or take them to the local landfill.

Last year there were hardly any walnuts on the tree.

I don't know what happened, but we only found about 20 nuts! Very disappointing.

But it looks like this year's harvest will be much better.

Even in winter, it still looks pretty awesome.