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Saturday, October 26, 2019

Acorns ramblings

I'm not huge on sharing memes and jokes on facebook, but sometimes I appreciate those who do. Today a friend shared this joke:

Do you even know what propaganda is?

The answer: It's when an Australian takes a good look at something.

And...guys...it might be the hour of the evening, but I laughed so hard for so long.

That really has nothing to do with anything, but I thought I'd jot it down because I find it hilarious.

Currently I'm waiting for Andrew to finish writing an abstract for a paper he's doing. He recently assigned his RA to do some background research for him and he was blown away by what a thorough job they did. He came into the kitchen glowing just telling me about it. With how busy he's been, I'm sure he's glad to have the help (though we are looking forward to next semester when he only has to teach one class (and it happens to be a class he's taught previously as well, which cuts down his workload immensely so he should be able to get a ton of research done)).

Last week he was out of town at a conference in LA, which meant I was on my own with the kids, which really isn't so bad, except at night.

One of the charming things about living in a forested area is that there are a lot of trees (duh). One of the not-so-charming things about living in a forested area is that those trees (especially, but not exclusively, in the fall) drop an amazing amount of debris, which ends up falling all around our house. It's like that primary song:

Leaves are falling all around
On the housetops, on the ground...

The leaves aren't so bad, though. It's the acorns that get me.


I'll be nice and cozy in bed, doing my best to fall asleep alone (with the light on so I won't be scared and then my sleep mask on because I can't sleep with the light on (I'm not complicated; you're complicated)), when *THUD* an acorn will hit the roof and then *skitter*skitter*skitter*plop* off it rolls.

When I'm awake my brain can (now (as in: now that we've finally figured out what the sound is and are no longer worried that there is a scurry of hyper squirrels leaping and scampering around on our roof all night and day)) quickly remind me that it's just an oak tree pelting our roof with acorns. But when I'm jolted awake as I'm falling asleep (or, worse, from a deep sleep (I'm a light sleeper, okay, and acorns falling on the roof wake me up (don't you wish you were me?))) my brain is a little less quick to remind me that that *THUD*skitter*plop* noise is a perfectly harmless acorn.

So I'm happy to have Andrew home because he's completely unbothered by acorns.

Did you know, by the way, that a single oak tree can produce hundreds of pounds of acorns a year? You'd believe it if you saw how many acorns the kids have been collecting in the yard!

Not every year will be so plentiful, I don't think, but this year they're just rolling around like marbles.

Our children have been very interested in making acorn flour ever since reading about it at the museum during our weekend adventures a couple of weeks ago. It seems to be quite the process (gather, crack, dry, husk, leach, leach, leach, leach, leach until the water runs clear or risk poisoning yourself) so I'm not sure we'll get around to it any time soon, but it is an interesting idea...

1 comment:

  1. Nighttime sounds are the worst when you are alone (me) or the one in charge (you). Making acorn flour sounds interesting!

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