Nuts and Berries

You know animals don’t worry
They’re living on nuts and berries…

Back in August, during the bike race, Mary and I took a short walk over at the Stanley recreation park. Like much of Page County, there are a lot of black walnut trees there – we even have a few around the Cabin. The trees appear to be the residuals from old nut orchards. Here is a picture of one of the trees, including a flock of geese overhead, and a handful of nuts I gathered off of the ground.

Last year, there was one of those historical pieces in the paper, talking about the old days, when the walnut harvest came around. The older kids were responsible for gathering the nuts. A brown dye was made from the sticky husks that cover the shell, and of course, the nuts were used for food. The story went on to reminisce about how all the kids would come to school with hands stained from the resin.

Flash forward to the present. Last week as I was driving into town on Ida Road, a nut fell off a tree and hit the car on the hood. I now have a nice ding, like you might also get from a hail storm, to show for my weekend activities.

Now we’re getting into fall, and the other nut trees are also dropping their fruit. We have a couple of different kinds of hickories scattered around the yard at Hawksbill Cabin – the nuts are everywhere, and you often can spot squirrels high up in the branches working them over for the fruit.

We also have a grove of white oaks in the front.

Their acorns are the big feed for all the wildlife, including blue jays – up in the trees, and on the ground – squirrels, and deer. There’s also a newcomer in the group, a bunny, but it stays in the backyard, where there is one very fertile oak, which the bunny apparently has to itself.

Speaking of the deer, our local herd has grown. There is an older doe with a fawn, and three or four other young deer, including yearlings from last year. The fawn has just grown out of its spots. I’ve also spotted a four-point buck wandering around with them. As I write this Friday night, four of them are grazing in the yard just below me. The buck is absent right now but was here earlier today.

The hickories and dogwoods are the first leaf changers in our yard. The dogwoods have their show on right now, while the walnuts have already lost many of their golden leaves. I’ve noticed there are a lot of dogwood berries this year – more than in our previous years here. There is also a large flock of robins, maybe as many as fifty birds, working these trees over. They’re not as noisy as the blue jays are, but they make a racket when they come to feed.

…They say they don’t need money
They’re living on nuts and berries
-Talking Heads, Animals