We had a moderate harvest of acorns this year. Some years you can’t step outside without crunching a foot full, but this year it was a hunt to find whole nuts. The squirrels have been busy too, and they leave the grub infested acorns and take the sound ones. As I’m collecting, I check the nuts for grubs. The acorns with a hole have had at least one grub leave, so the nutmeat inside has already been mostly consumed. If there is no hole, I pop off the cap. If the cap end of the nut is whole and solid, I collect it. If it looks like “dirt” collected at the end, I leave it; there is a grub actively at work consuming the nutmeat.

Adult female acorn weevils bore a hole into the developing acorns when they are still on the tree (TAMU). The grub develops inside, feeding on the acorn. When the acorn falls, the grub bores a hole out of the shell then burrows into the dirt to develop into an adult. I don’t need a reference for the second part. When my eldest was about 4, we made an autumn decoration with play dough and acorns. Later I found a grub happily munching through the dried play dough and a hole in one of the acorn. Did we throw it out? No, of course not. We filled a mason jar half full of dirt, put the grub inside, and capped it with a metal screen (for air flow) so we could see what it developed into. The next Spring, there was an adult acorn weevil, which we released back outside.

If you are collecting acorns for decoration, I’ve heard freezing them will kill the grubs, if you don’t want surprise inhabitants.

Walking through the meadow I found quite a large hole.

I set up our trail cam to see if this was a water made hole, or a critter made hole.

The trail cam mostly had shots of waving dry grasses (so many pics), but there were a few cat photo bombs, and this one above, with the cat wide-eyed and running, and the slight glint of the eyes of a toad on the left side of the picture. Is this the toad’s home? Was it defending it? Or was the cat running from something else? Hm.

The toad is looking at the cat, and is quite menacing, for a toad.

My eldest was following a cat through the back woods and found a collection of possum bones. This is the most complete skeleton that has been found on our property, there was even a vertebrae! The pelvis is a new find as well.

My eldest washed the bones, then soaked them in a 50:50 solution of 3% hydrogen peroxide and water for about 10 hours. When they are dry, the plan is to use them for a color wheel for a school project. Definitely my kid.

The term “desire path” is new to me. Merriam-Webster defines it as:

an unplanned route or path (such as one worn into a grassy surface by repeated foot traffic) that is used by pedestrians in preference to or in the absence of a designated alternative (such as a paved pathway)

I went down a whole rabbit hole of architecture choices both embracing desire paths (paving the chosen routes in an attractive manner), and rejecting desire paths (deliberate right angles and tempting grassy stretches with nasty little signs).

I have ventured back into my woods after my achilles tendon tear a year ago. My paths are mostly traversable especially where the critters have kept up use. They need a good trim, but I was surprised how well I could negotiate the way. The path pictured below didn’t start as a critter desire path, but was forged with the sweep of a motorized trimmer five years ago. The critters like it though.

No Ms Toad, you really wouldn’t like it inside, trust me. Nice try, though, sneaking around behind me as I came out the door, and making for the opening as I try to go back in. There are things in there that would curl your hair. Oh wait, my apologies, things that would give you bumps. Uh, more bumps.