My Dads farm has Black Walnut trees everywhere. This year they are not looking too bad, but on dry years the leaves turn early and the walnuts aren't very big.
My dads tip to remove the black hulls from the walnuts is to spread them by the mail box and let the mailmans tires remove the hulls.
My Dad now has a whole orchard of walnut trees complments of us kids. We were told to "get rid" of the walnuts in the yard, so we got out the racket ball rackets and hit them all into the cow paster. He still complains about that. :oops: