We are having, what is commonly described, as a “big mast year,” which means, there are a lot of acorns in the yard caused by the weather and can be very localized in micro-climates.
We live in a suburb on a wooded lot. When we first moved in, there were many majestic red and white oak trees on and around our property. Many have slowly died from oak wilt. We still have several huge oak trees in our yard, and along the woods. In the Fall, when our two children were small, we would give them buckets to collect the acorns. My husband is a “want to be” botanist and is always collecting native seeds to stratify and plant in the woods that surround our home. Several years, he potted the acorns, in an attempt to grow them; though, resulting in a small success rate as the woodland animals usually ate them. To encourage the collection of the acorns, he would give the children a nominal monetary amount for each acorn they collected; more for those that had started to grow a taproot.
We are having, what is commonly described, as a “big mast year,” which means, there are a lot of acorns in the yard caused by the weather and can be very localized in micro-climates.
There is a slight wind today, and I can hear the acorns drop on the hard surfaces like someone is hammering or banging things around. When the wind blows hard enough, the trees rain acorns.
Oak varieties are my favorite trees. I love sitting under the majestic oak savannah’s. There are a couple of places in the metro area where savannah’s still existed. One of them is near a waterfall in the city. White oaks can reach heights of 150 feet. They take several centuries to reach this height, so when one dies, I have lost a living attachment to history, and a connection to the people that lived in this area before me. The trees in our front and backyard are stately. They have thick, heavy, long-gated branches, that spread over half of our one-acre lot. A leaf from the tree will cover my open hand entirely, and part of my forearm. These trees are hard to find in the nursery at a reasonable size, because they grow so slow, only 12 to 14 inches per year.
There is a slight wind today, and I can hear the acorns drop on the hard surfaces like someone is hammering or banging things around. When the wind blows hard enough, the trees rain acorns.
Now, what should I do with all of the acorns I collected?
I have started collecting them, and now it is like an addiction. I love how the acorns feel in my hands as I roll them around. They are so perfectly “acorn” shaped. My husband and I have talked about creating a meshed-in nursery, to keep the seedlings away from the critters, attempting one more time to see if we can be a “Johnny Appleseed.”
I have probably picked up one-fourth of what has dropped. I really should stop, and do something else. My son would be laughing at me, tellingly me politely, with a smile on his face, “ Mom, do you think you are going overboard, spending this much time collecting the acorns. What are going to do with all of these?”
My reasoning for collecting them is to save them from the blades of the lawnmower. It is hard to mow over the little sprouts of trees popping up all over the yard. Later, I will place them in woods, hidden from the site of the squirrels.
We had another “big mast year” when the kids were little. We had remodeled the house, and the back yard was being landscaped when we took these pictures.
