It’s “Cobjon Nutculture Services” of Ottawa, Canada, with an old toll free number of 877-567-8472. The tool is called “Cobjon’s Canada Black Walnut Cutter”. They had a web address, cobjon.com, but it appears it’s a defunct site. I could not find any reference or link more recent than 2004 or 2005.

I don’t know if the company still exists, but the tool surely works.

If squirrels are well provsioned by the ecosystem with profuse tree canopy and food, and if the squirrels successfully avoid hawks, fox, bobcats or the rare eagle, I am happy to see them going about their lustrous chores, and to listen to their temperamental boreal chatter. The dogs on rare occasion have viewed squirrels as catchable sport, but those canines will chase game like jackrabbit which they have no chance of catching. Next year when there is time to modernize the garden will be another test, discerning what garden varieties of human fare lepus c. will snub.

I’m glad you enjoyed it.

It will live forever is a great book about native american acorn processing, associated information.

Aside from the coastal liveoak community there is a sprinkling of deciduous oaks, mostly in coppices on knolls and lots of them in their own plant subcommunities climbing up many swales which lead to the alluvia in the elongated valley visible stretching away from the hill near here.

Since the space is ample where I live, the place includes a more traditional forest on ridgelines, in one section of which is the most typical folkloric kind of oak known as tanoak. It is a slender tree that competes with conifers successfully for light when both are similar ages, but the conifers win eventually, forming a top story which ultimately usually grabs all the sunlight and wins the race to climax forest, leaving tanoak stands to dwindle. Based on solid forestry practice and science, and given the gift of excellent soil and ample distance from pollution, on a ridge with plenty of groundwater, some pockets here of tanoaks have survived intact, with the rare help of the chainsaw thoughtfully wielded. The tanoaks, a descendent of some original tribal people told me a few years ago, formed the site of a kind of adoration when people on the move would find such a grove, as tanoaks provided an array of useful life supporting byproducts to the stoneage people who lived among the trees. I imagine people gathering and voicing appreciation to the tanoaks for being so bountiful and enabling people to live nearby yearlong. I have yet to try an oakmeal food item, though reportedly the aboriginals devised a way to leach the bitter flavor from the acorns so they could make flour or gruel. I guess I will stay with oatmeal. The oats do well here, too, in the valley. I have participated in oat pasture development, but that is a topic for some other time.

I am fortunate to live on a former homestead. Some of the other comments about walnuts will provide a reflection of the effort to gather and preserve those. In this place, there is a trick about timing between or even before rains, depending on part of the country and whether the English rootstock is grafted to a more prolific, larger variety scion for the top, harvested part of the tree; the Italian cultivar scion yields large walnuts with a thick husk that the sun desiccates leaving the nude nut for gathering but wear stainproof gloves if you plan to touch the husks. Chestnut gathering is a similarly artful endeavor. The Shelties fit in their niche of the ecosystem, but the trees seem to supply squirrels adequately, and the dogs tend to be reluctant to attempt to trap squirrels who leap up the conifers for respite. I participated in a project to restore a field the gas and electric company had mauled installing a pipeline on one corner of the land, spending quite a few years planting and pruning several varieties of conifers on ~20ac.

As for Hans vS, evidently he has seen the consultancy handwriting on the US Commission* on Civil Rights wall, and has opted to work instead quickly for core Republican values suing FEC to prove there are droves of little voter wraiths which blossom at midnight in the dark forest of democracy; he wants FEC to find them.
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*RHasen in August 2008 reported the USCCR assignment from Bush to vonS a fulltime temporary post; then again, Hasen gets fairly terse when characterizing vonS’ career moves. The latter link branches to both the thinktank gibberish which is vonS’ wont, and to the FEC court case complaint the Republicans filed three weeks ago in US District Court in DC.

feral cats and raccoons rule the wild niches of our urban wildlife preserve