acorns

Bumper crop in the yard- it must be a mast year. I noticed there's tons of big fat white oak acorns falling, I can actually hear them thump onto the ground if I'm outside. Don't know if I never noticed them before, or if this year the tree really is producing more than usual. And it's smaller and scrawnier than the big straight pin oak. Perhaps because the leaf mulch pile was near base of the white oak this past season, it had more nutrients to put into growing nuts? well, I decided to collect them 

Mainly because I don't want to encourage the deer and squirrels into my yard anymore than they already are. Plus the tannins inhibit growth of the lawn and other plants under the trees. I am picking up all the broken ones, empty shells and separated acorn caps too, because they roll and crunch under my feet the same way, making me stoop and reach for a nut that isn't there. Easiest way to find them (even though I cut the grass down to an inch, they're still fairly hidden) is by walking back and forth gently scuffing my feet on the ground. Or sit and rake my fingers through the grass in a wide circle around me. (I must look like a fool to the neighbors). Here's what I got on the first day (a lot with a rake, after raking up the leaves)

After cleaning them up- sorting out the bad ones, and putting the small ones from the pin oak in a separate container

discards-

After a day of going through them and reading up, I decided to just toss all the pin acorns. Most of them seem to have worm holes, and they're smaller so maybe not worth all the prep work of prepping to eat, and they're supposedly more bitter. I fill my pockets with them for a walk and scatter in the woods- the deer and squirrels can eat them there.

The worms. I was right about more of them being in the pin acorns. Since I removed those, I find far fewer grubs squirming across the floor.

And then what? Well, I'm curious to try and eat them, leached and cooked into something of course. It is a lot of steps, but not as much actual physical hard work as cracking and extracting the hickory nuts was. I wait for the shells to start cracking when they dry, and open 'em up by hand. Then put in the freezer until I have enough to grind, this is just the first part of the process. So far, not encouraging. About half of the ones I've opened, are partly rotted or moldy inside. (These few were good)

So it might take a lot of collecting to get enough to actually use. All this was actually earlier in the week. Since then I've gone out to pick up acorns in the yard for just an hour once every day or so- hoping if I get them right after falling they won't have absorbed as much moisture from the ground? Collected on day two from my yard 

and these from the pin oak

Day three collected- still a good amount- I'm guessing they'll keep coming down for weeks.

But if it turns out that over half are bad (see the three with worm holes upper left of pic) and I don't get much acorn meal to use, 

next year I'll just pick them up to relocate in the woods for the wildlife.