now even I'm feeding the squirrels...

::Sheepishly raising my hand for officially joining the 'feeding the squirrels' club::

Puppy dog Jack and I have been quite successful in collecting fallen walnuts from the nearby park.   We've also filled a bag with small branches chewed off black walnut trees by the squirrels.  Apparently the leaves make a wonderful addition to the dyepot.  When the count reached 23 walnuts, I decided to start experimenting.

Searches on the web and on Ravelry turned up many variations on dyeing methods.  Some with mordants, some without.  Some simmered, some soaking in water for days/years on end.

For my first batch, I placed the whole walnuts in a 5-gallon plastic paint bucket and poured in about 2 gallons of boiling water.  It was left outdoors to soak overnight.

By morning the husks were softened enough to cut away from the nut.  I protected my hands from the stain with latex-free exam gloves and  cut around the centers with a paring knife, returning the husks to the dyepot and filling a clay pot with the walnuts.

Okay.  I realize that black walnuts are a delicacy.  But I couldn't imagine eating them.  So I put the clay pot of nuts in the crook of our peach tree for the squirrels.

(For those who've followed my ramblings over the years ... no, we didn't cut the peach tree down after all.  Imagine that!)

In retrospect, it would have been fun to watch from the window as the squirrels discovered the nuts.  But I was away from the house for several hours this morning.  And during that time the squirrels discovered the nuts.  All were gone when I checked.

Suddenly I'm wondering ... whose yard did they bury them all in?!

ETA:  The fun is officially over.  I'm nuts for feeding squirrels.  I looked out this afternoon and the tub I had turned upside down and placed on the paint bucket had grown a long fluffy tail.   A long, fluffy, twitchy tail.  Impertinent Nutkin seems to have developed a taste for walnuts, and has sniffed out the soaking husks in my dyepot.

So I removed it from the back porch and put it around the back of the house.  Now the plastic bucket has the additional protection of an upside-down large enamel pot (that fits rather snugly) as well as the larger tub plus heavy garden pots to weigh it all down.  This is what I get for being "friendly" to bushy-tailed rodents.

P.S.  I'd love to read any comments from those of you who have had experience with black walnut dye.