Herbal Allies 3. (& Dwellings 2.5?) Black Walnut Saved Our House From Burning Down!

If you've read my 'Dwellings' posts you might remember that in the first post I mentioned the first property my husband and I bought. It was a little cottage up on a hill. That's where we lived before the yurt.

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This began as an 'Herbal Allies' post but I realized in order to tell my story about Black Walnut I also need to tell about the very first house we lived in! So here we have two in one- herbs and dwellings post!

When we were searching for property back then we met with a realtor in our favorite county. Pretty and wooded with thousands of acres of rolling wooded hills and quite a bit of freshwater.... At that point in time we had been together for three years and had not yet had any children. We did have a German Shepherd, Max, who was very dear to us.

We looked at a couple of properties with the realtor and they were too expensive, or not secluded enough. Finally with a cringe she hesitatingly said, "Well there is this one other property..." Seeing our excitement she quickly tried to bring us back to reality by saying, literally, "If it were mine I'd burn it to the ground. It has no running water and it has the worst driveway in the county. It miles off the beaten path, I don't know if you really want to see it."

Her attempts to dissuade us were futile. Off we went to see this wretched place...

Finally after miles of winding gravel roads we saw it, there it was, a little red cottage sitting waaay up on top of a very steep hill, one of the highest points in the county. Surrounded by huge 80 to 100 year old oaks, some sugar maples, black walnuts and other hardwoods... The driveway was nearly impassable with an AWD, and filled with ruts and trenches.. and geode crystals! It even had a tin roof! We knew "This is it!" The realtor most likely concealed a hearty laugh and then realized we were serious. This place had been donated to a church and they sold it for a nice low price.

We had very few possessions at that time because we had been mostly traveling and living out of our camper-shell-topped pickup truck for a few years. We moved everything to our new place and began unpacking and "decorating" our first night there. It was so exciting- our first property! We had big dreams and visions for what we would do there. Being that we didn't have running water there, we brought a five gallon jug of drinking water to last us a couple days- one of those bottle necked blue plastic jugs... It was Winter, cold February...

The house came with a wood-stove so we built a fire in it to keep warm.

We drank a couple of beers and were listening to some music (we did have electricity) and stayed up late unpacking and celebrating.

Suddenly we saw flames shooting out from where the stove pipe meets the (cheap) drop ceiling!

Ahhhh! FIRE!!!!

Panic. No telephone... No running water... We just bought this place, literally yesterday... It was midnight. It was dark. No insurance... No nearby neighbors... Remote... Sitting on top of a steep hill with a terrible driveway...

I quickly grabbed the five gallon water jug and began trying to hoist it into the air to toss what became a "sprinkle" of water out of the tiny bottle neck. The flames raged on the synthetic material of the ceiling and the fiberglass insulation.
Meanwhile husband was trying to toss and pat the fire with blankets but it kept growing in strength! Within seconds we realized we were helpless.

I decided to run down the hill, down the road to the nearest neighbor (whom I had not met yet). I happened to be wearing all black, and arrived, distraught and sweaty in the night at our new neighbors home. Ringing their doorbell. Finally the man answered and he clearly had a pistol in his hand- prepared for trouble. A black clad crazy woman sweaty, in tears, breathless, banging on his door out in the middle of nowhere at midnight in the middle of winter?

As soon as he opened the door I spoke rapidly,

"Hello. I'm sorry to bother you at this time of night. My husband and I just purchased that little cottage on top of the hill down the road- we don't have a telephone yet and no water. The house caught on fire! Please call the fire department! Do you have a jug of water I can take back with me? Please! Sorry! Thank you!"

He did look at me for a minute, wondering if this was some funny business. But finally he believed me and sprung to action, his wife called the fire department and he went to fill jugs of water and load them into his truck. Meanwhile, I ran back (partially walking with a pain in my side) to our driveway and was trucking up it as fast as I could. What would I do? How was my husband fairing? Had the whole place burnt down by now?

When I got to the top of the driveway and finally reached the house it was still standing. My husband was on top of the roof holding what was left of the water jug and pouring it down the chimney- very wise! It showed signs of taming the flames but it ran out...

He looked around him , "Water! We need water!!!"

There is was... This natural dyeing yarn spinning gal had packed and moved, along with the rest of our belongings, a five gallon bucket of Black Walnut dye... (doesn't everyone take their buckets of plant dyes with them wherever they go?)

He scrambled down the ladder and back up again with the full bucket. We heard the sound of our neighbors four-wheel-drive truck at the bottom of the hill. Husband opened the lid of the bucket, and poured the Black Walnut dye down the chimney.... the sweetest sound I had ever heard- "Ssssssssssssssssssssssss" as one element defeated the other.

The Black Walnut dye extinguished the chimney fire.

It saved our cottage. It saved our life.

Our neighbor made it to the top and with cries of joy we told him all was well! Who would have thought that 5 little gallons of liquid, strategically used, could have stopped that fire! Husband continued pouring the water our neighbor brought down the chimney just to make extra sure it wasn't going to flame up again. And, about thirty minutes later the fire department arrived.

They walked up the driveway, and informed us that we were very lucky because not only would they have not been able to get their fire truck up to our house, but the hill was so tall that even their hoses wouldn't have reached. We lost a lot of wood 2 x 4's and insulation and synthetic drop ceiling material around where the chimney was, but other than that it could be repaired by my husband.

Obviously we learned a lesson the hard way- don't burn a fire until you've cleaned your chimney!

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So you might have heard that Black Walnut (Juglans Nigra) has a delicious edible nut after removing the green hulls and curing the nuts for a few weeks.

You might have heard that it is an excellent vermifuge, cleansing the body of parasites when a tincture is made from the green hulls steeping them in vodka for several weeks.

You might have heard that the wood is beautiful and great to carve and build with.

You might have heard that a wonderful anti-fungal salve can be made with the green hulls and leaves...

But I bet you didn't know before that you can use the dye to save your house from burning down!