We went camping this past week.  Of course we had to park the camper under a big oak tree.
It did give us shade from the sunshine but the place we were at also abounds with squirrels.  Those cute little things have the run of the place.
We enjoyed watching the furry critters run up and down the trees, chasing each other and it kept us entertained without having any television to look at.
Now, as we were sitting under our awning, and I am thankful for that being out, we heard an acorn fall.
Nothing much to bother us but…another one fell.  Now you can imagine the thunk it made when it hit the metal roof of the trailer and then rolled off and down the awning to the ground.
Well, it seemed the oak tree had a grievance against us as it kept showering those acorns on the trailer.  They were bounding everywhere.
We were camping with my brother and sister-in-law and my brother-in-law had his field glasses.  He raised them to look up in the tree to watch the squirrels that were up there.
He was sure surprised.  I imagine most people think that acorns just happen to drop from the trees by themselves, right?  Wrong!
The acorns definitely have a little help.  If you see some acorns laying on the ground, go pick one up and look at the little cap that sits on top of it.  You will see a small hole.
Know what made that hole?  The squirrel does.
It goes up the tree to where there are a bunch of acorns. Then it makes a small hole in the top of each one, dislodging the acorn from the cluster.  They are pretty good at it too and fast.
When the cluster is gone it moves onto another one and repeats the biting process.
Once the nuts fall to the ground then the squirrel is free to pick them up and go bury them for winter.
Every one of the nuts we picked up had the small hole drilled in exactly the same spot.  When we returned home yesterday, we went out into our yard where we have an extremely large oak tree.  There under the tree were the acorns.  Every one of them had the little hole drilled in exactly the same spot as the ones that came down on us while we were camping.
Guess we are not too old to learn new things about our furry little friends
up the tree.