going nutty

over the weekend,  i read a post from a very interesting blog, the foraging family. they were discussing hazelnuts, and harvesting thereof. Now, just the day before, i had picked what i had told might be chestnuts, and a bit of stem in order to identify them. Hubby identified them as American Hazelnuts. Nice. I then went online to try and figure out when to pick said nuts. everything i could figure out said 'soon' so...  this weekend, i took little girl out for a short jaunt to go picking what nuts we could find. (with our poor weather, most crops were sparse, at best) 

little girl in front of a hazelnut bush

nuts ripening on the bush. the reddish leaf tone made it easy to spot other bushes amongst all the other shrubs

unidentified berries. anyone have any idea?

more unidentified fruiting plantlife. this one is a climber of some sort. can't figure out what it is though...

our 'bounty'....  perhaps 4 cups of husks... maybe a cup of nuts still in the shell?

a big difference in nut sizes. some were tiny, some were huge... and it didn't seem to correspond with bush size either. also, the pollination was obviously poor, as while most of the nuts i picked were singles or twins, a couple were four or five on one stem.

the instructions i have suggest finishing ripening them indoors before shelling... so i'll do just that. i know some of the nuts have holes in them, but i'm hoping to have enough to share a nice taste in a week or so.