Something Squirrely

There are many different types of oak trees in our neighborhood, and several in the yard around the house. The species nearby are White Oak (Quercus alba), Scarlet Oak (Quercus coccinea), and Chestnut Oak (Quercus montana). Each autumn before the leaves start turning color, the acorns begin to fall.


Currently, there are seven oaks on the property; the others have either fallen or were removed before they fell. All of these very mature trees produce copious amounts of acorns. We rake them up, along with the leaves in the autumn, and can — quite literally — shovel them up, there are so freaking many of them! 😬


The trees are lovely, though, and provide so much shade in the summertime, which is why we've not removed all of them. It is expensive to remove them, too, if one hires someone to do it, and very labor-intensive and sometimes dangerous to do it oneself. So, they've stayed all these years.

The acorns start out as green on the trees and then mature to a tan or dark brown, depending on the species of tree. Sometimes, though, the action of wind or squirrels will knock an acorn from the tree before it matures. One example is this lovely specimen which contains three different colors, like the epitome of autumn, Herself!


A corn? Ayyyyyy, corn! Acorn! Yes. I'm nuts!

So, this is how an acorn looks on the tree once it has grown to full-size (this one also knocked-down by a squirrel before it matured);


⚡️ Plugging an orange electrical cord into the acorn gives this shocking effect:


🏴‍☠️ Asking our friendly, neighborhood Nuclear Reactor worker to implant a little uranium into the acorn gives this effect:


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WARNING: Don't try those last two experiments at home, kids! Electrifying acorns or implanting uranium in them is best left to the professionals! No acorns were harmed in the making of this post. The first acorn got a jolt out of what I did to it, and the second acorn enjoyed Homer's boosting its half-life.