emc wrote:
No comparison to an earthquake but… although the sun is shining here in Canton, GA… it is raining acorns at my house today… making loud noises as they hit my roof and especially the gutters. Our animals have taken refuge on the porch and I don’t want to go to the mailbox without protective head gear… Only ones happy about this are the squirrels, but they seem to be keeping to their nests right now.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn wrote:
<<The acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives (genera Quercus and Lithocarpus, in the family Fagaceae). It usually contains a single seed (rarely two seeds), enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad. Acorns take between about 6 or 24 months to mature.
Acorns are one of the most important wildlife foods in areas where oaks occur. Acorns, along with other nuts, are termed mast. Wildlife which eat acorns as an important part of their diets include birds, such as jays, pigeons, some ducks, and several species of woodpeckers. Small mammals that feed on acorns include mice, squirrels and several other rodents. Such large mammals as pigs, bears, and deer also consume large amounts of acorns: they may constitute up to 25% of the diet of deer in the autumn. In Spain and Portugal pigs are still turned loose in dehesas (large oak groves) in the autumn, to fill and fatten themselves on acorns. However, acorns are toxic to some other animals, such as horses. The larvae of some moths and weevils also live in young acorns, consuming the kernels as they develop.
Acorns are attractive to animals because they are large and thus efficiently consumed or cached. Acorns are also rich in nutrients. Percentages vary from species to species, but all acorns contain large amounts of protein, carbohydrates and fats, as well as the minerals calcium, phosphorus and potassium, and the vitamin niacin. Total food energy in an acorn also varies by species, but all compare well with other wild foods and with other nuts.
Acorns also contain bitter tannins, the amount varying with the species. Since tannins, which are plant polyphenols, interfere with an animal's ability to metabolize protein, creatures must adapt in different ways to utilize the nutritional value that acorns contain.
Animals that cache acorns, such as jays and squirrels, may wait to consume some of these acorns until sufficient groundwater has percolated through them to leach out the tannins. Other animals buffer their acorn diet with other foods. Many insects, birds, and mammals metabolize tannins with fewer ill-effects than humans. Species of acorn that contain large amounts of tannins are very bitter, astringent, and potentially irritating if eaten raw. This is particularly true of the acorns of red oaks. The acorns of white oaks, being much lower in tannins, are nutty in flavor, which is enhanced if the acorns are given a light roast before grinding. Acorns of the white oak group, Leucobalanus, typically start rooting as soon as they are in contact with the soil (in the fall), then send up the leaf shoot in the spring.
Acorns, are too heavy for wind dispersal, and so require other ways to spread. Oaks therefore depend on biological seed dispersal agents to move the acorns beyond the mother tree and into a suitable area for germination (including access to adequate water, sunlight and soil nutrients) ideally a minimum of 20–30 m from the parent tree. Many animals eat unripe acorns on the tree or ripe acorns from the ground, with no reproductive benefit to the oak. Acorns germinate on different schedules, depending on their place in the oak family. Once acorns sprout, they are less nutritious, as the seed tissue converts to the indigestible lignins that form the root.
In some human cultures, acorns once constituted a dietary staple, though they are now generally considered a minor food with the exception of Native American and Korean cultures. In Korean culture in particular, dotorimuk, acorn jelly, and dotori guksu (acorn noodles), are commonly eaten. Acorns appear only on adult trees, and thus are often a symbol of patience and the fruition of long, hard labor. For example, an English proverb states that Great oaks from little acorns grow, urging the listener to wait for maturation of a project or idea.A German folktale has a farmer trying to outwit Satan, to whom he has promised his soul, by asking for a reprieve until his first crop is harvested; he plants acorns and has many years to enjoy first.
The Norse legend that Thor sheltered from a thunderstorm under an oak tree has led to the belief that having an acorn on a windowsill will prevent a house from being struck by lightning; hence the popularity of window blind pulls decorated as acorns.>>
Don Quixote, Part 1. The Second Book
III. Of That Which Passed between Don Quixote and Certain Goatherds
<<The goatherds did not understand that gibberish of squires and knights-errant, and therefore did nothing else but eat and hold their peace, and look on their guests, that tossed in with their fists whole slices, with good grace and stomachs. The course of flesh being ended, they served in on the rugs a great quantity of shelled *
ACORNS*, and half a cheese, harder than if it were made of rough-casting. The horn stood not the while idle; for it went round about so often, now full, now empty, much like a conduit of Noria; and in a trice it emptied one of the two wine-bags that lay there in the public view. After that Don Quixote had satisfied his appetite well, he took up a handful of *
ACORNS*, and, beholding them earnestly, he began to discourse in this manner: ‘Happy time, and fortunate ages were those, whereon our ancestors bestowed the title of golden! not because gold (so much prized in this our iron age) was gotten in that happy time without any labours, but because those which lived in that time knew not these two words, ‘thine’ and ‘mine’; in that holy age all things were in common. No man needed, for his ordinary sustenance, to do ought else than lift up his hand, and take it from the strong oak, which did liberally invite them to gather his sweet and savoury fruit. The clear fountains and running rivers did offer them these savoury and transparent waters in magnificent abundance. In the clefts of rocks and hollow trees did the careful and discreet bees erect their commonwealth, offering to every hand, without interest, the fertile crop of their sweetest travails. The lofty cork-trees did dismiss of themselves, without any other art than that of their native liberality, their broad and light rinds; wherewithal houses were at first covered, being sustained by rustical stakes, to none other end but for to keep back the inclemencies of the air. All then was peace, all amity, and all concord. As yet the ploughshare presumed not, with rude encounter, to open and search the compassionate bowels of our first mother; for she, without compulsion, offered up, through all the parts of her fertile and spacious bosom, all that which might satisfy, sustain, and delight those children which it then had. Yea, it was then that the simple and beautiful young shepherdesses went from valley to valley and hill to hill, with their hair sometimes plaited, sometimes dishevelled, without other apparel than that which was requisite to cover comely that which modesty wills, and ever would have, concealed. Then were of no request the attires and ornaments which are now used by those that esteem the purple of Tyre and the so-many-ways-martyrised silk so much, but only certain green leaves of burdocks and ivy intertexed and woven together; wherewithal, perhaps, they went as gorgeously and comely decked as now our court dames, with all their rare and outlandish inventions that idleness and curiosity hath found out. Then were the amorous conceits of the mind simply and sincerely delivered, and embellished in the very form and manner that she had conceived them, without any artificial contexture of words to endear them. Fraud, deceit, or malice had not then meddled themselves with plainness and truth. Justice was then in her proper terms, favour daring not to trouble or confound her, or the respect of profit, which do now persecute, blemish, and disturb her so much. The law of corruption, or taking bribes, had not yet possessed the understanding of the judge; for then was neither judge, nor person to be judged. Maidens and honesty wandered then, I say, where they listed, alone, signiorising, secure that no stranger liberty, or lascivious intent could prejudice it, or their own native desire or will any way endamage it. But now, in these our detestable times, no damsel is safe, although she be hid and shut up in another new labyrinth, like that of Crete; for even there itself the amorous plague would enter, either by some cranny, or by the air, or by the continual urgings of cursed care, to infect her; for whose protection and security was first instituted, by success of times, the order of knighthood, to defend damsels, protect widows, and assist orphans and distressed wights. Of this order am I, friends goatherds, whom I do heartily thank for the good entertainment which you do give unto me and my squire; for although that every one living is obliged, by the law of nature, to favour knights-errant, yet notwithstanding, knowing that you knew not this obligation, and yet did receive and make much of me, it stands will all reason that I do render you thanks will all my heart!’
Our knight made this long oration (which might have been well excused), because the *
ACORNS* that were given unto him called to his mind the golden world, and therefore the humour took him to make the goatherds that unprofitable discourse; who heard him, all amazed and suspended, with very great attention all the while. Sancho likewise, held his peace, eating *
ACORNS*, and in the meanwhile visited very often the second wine-bag, which, because it might be fresh, was hanged upon a cork-tree.
) managed to almost hit 15 degrees. I walked around in two of Malmö's big parks and looked at the trees and the way the leaves were beginning to change color. A few bushes and small trees were brilliantly scarlet red, other leaves were orange and yellow, but most were still green. 
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