I just drove by the local walnut buyer, and his rig is not set up this year.
That makes me sad. It was great having him just down the road.
These are the only photos of the operation I can put my hands on right now, but for those interested, here is what it looks like sort of.
This was my trailer load. That's the walnut buyers helping me unload.
You back the truck/trailer up to this bin. Dump/shovel the walnuts in. Up the conveyor and into the huller. You can barely see the chains through the open door back there (he opened it for me to take the photo). They beat back and forth pretty hard actually, and on the left end, the hulled walnuts come out a chute. ON the right, the conveyor carries the hulls up and into his old-fashioned manure spreader. I never did tell them they shouldn't put that on their fields.
Walnuts get bagged coming out of the chute, and weighed. Then he writes you a check.