Autumn Nuts Like Me

 As I wander about in the Autumn, I stuff my pockets with acorns, hazelnuts and whatever seed that catches my attention with the goal of growing a tree. Some particularly magnificent trees, I admire enough to collect a dozen or so seeds in order to cast them onto other sites. I am sure to carefully choose places where other like trees are growing with the thought of preserving and spreading the mother tree's genetics.  I fully understand that the odds are against the seed ever reaching maturity and here's the reason why - squirrels.

Oh sure we are all told as small tots that birds, deer and squirrels are helpers as they disperse seeds near and far. The ugly truth is however, that a squirrel will choose the one nut that you cherish from thousands of others and that will be the one he cracks. I know this to be fact because I have finally learned how to outwit the beast under very controlled conditions. Well to be perfectly honest, I have outwitted them on one occasion and that was more than ten years ago now. You know, that if you really consider a squirrel, you will find that they are in reality little more a furry rat that raids our birdfeeders.

And so it was that I had my eye on a Black Walnut tree growing along 142 behind the school. I thought it would be an easy task to grow one myself and so brought a nut home and popped it in the produce drawer of my fridge. Wayne thought that I had gone nuts every time he wanted an apple from the fridge. When it was time, I brought it out to the garage, potted it and waited for spring. It was thieved right out of my garage. The next Autumn, I potted several nuts right away, sunk them in the ground and covered them with chicken wire. The plastic pots were gnawed through and the nuts pillaged. After a couple more Autumns of trying, I finally managed to sprout one tree by potting it in a clay pot, wrapping the entire pot with chicken wire and completely burying it. Who I ask you, Is the nut now?

These days my tree is taller than our roof and I spend time each summer digging out or cutting down Black Walnut saplings growing in my rhododendrons, planter boxes, blackberries, up through my deck boards... I am positive that had we not put on a chimney cap, I would have trees growing in there too. Here is some sage advice, never never never cross a squirrel for they and their hoards of relatives will spend the rest of their days exacting revenge! "Oh so you want a Black Walnut do you? Well here are five thousand more nuts buried in your snow blower!"

This year I am attempting to grow Shagbark Hickory (again).

                                                           American  Chestnut (hybrid?)

                                          

                                                               Horse Chestnut

    

                                                                    Shagbark Hickory

    

                                                                      Black Walnut

    

                                                                    Red Oak

                                                                       Black Oak

                        A Common gray squirrel peers down on me planning its revenge!

Sadly, this year I missed finding the Beechnuts and Butternuts before the squirrels, bear, deer and birds got to them. The American Filberts (Hazelnut) that I planted last Autumn are still too young to produce nuts. That leaves the White Oak which I am certain to find on the forest floor before winter snows cover them. For someone who is allergic to tree nuts, I'll admit that it is a strange hobby to be collecting nuts and planting nut trees; but our wildlife depend on Autumn nuts to survive our Vernon Winters. -Norma Manning