One year, I collected a bag of black walnuts for a project I was going to do in the winter months. My wife and I were going to a dinner party that Saturday with friends from work. I had about five hours before the party, and I decided I was going to hull the black walnuts. I never worked with them, but how hard could it be to take the outer skin off the walnuts? I got my knife and started to work. In one hour I had all the outside skins off the walnuts. Job finished -- now to clean up. I cleaned up the mess, went into the basement to wash my hands, which were quite dirty. They did not come clean, and I realized what had happened. Very little vegetation grows under a black walnut tree. I could not get the black stain off my hands. We went to the dinner, but I wore a pair of my wife's white gloves all evening. People asked, "why the gloves?." I said it's hard to explain! The staining lasted a long time!
