I really enjoyed this post @dswigle. Had me with the first photo, as it along with many of your pictures, brings back fond memories of my youth. I had the blessing to spend a number of years in a very old home on a 3-acre property with a type of fruit tree that environment supported. Not only every type, but multiple varieties of each type. The elderly gentleman who had built the place from scratch in the early 1900s was skilled enough to even have grafts of more than one variety from the same trunk. I was a magical wonderland for a boy to grow up in.

Our favorite fruit was the cherries. Since the orchard was way, way past its prime, they were huge trees, so we'd climb into the tops of them and +30 feet off of the ground. We'd eat the tree ripened fruit and have "seed fights" by squirting the slippery pits between our fingers at our siblings ...

We also had a couple of very large black walnut trees. One of which held our beloved tree house - about 30 feet up off of the ground. We'd sleep up there and the gentle winds blowing down from the canyon would sway us to sleep ...

I remember the stain on our fingers from breaking the black walnuts open. And a real pain to get the "meat" of them out of their shells. But, wow, what a wonderful flavor they had. They were by far our favorite nut. 👌

I'll close with letting you know what may already be familiar to you. Black walnut wood is very valuable, if harvested properly. Not that I am encouraging you to cut down any trees ... 😏