I can tell you where all the acorns were this year - in my goddamn farking driveway. I cleaned those motherfarkers off at least 5 times so far this year.

Every year, I hear the annual acorn drop outside my house - it sounds like hail hitting everything. They are everywhere - unless we are going to get a really hard winter, then there are none on the ground; the squirrels gather them as fast as they come down. This year, it was quiet. I've been putting food out for 2 months now - even the raccoons are coming on my front porch to get a meal.

ThatGuyGreg: I can tell you where all the acorns were this year - in my goddamn farking driveway. I cleaned those motherfarkers off at least 5 times so far this year.

I came in here to say the same damn thing. Those and the walnuts.

Got the walnuts here (midwest). First the fleshy green fruits to trip over, then the chewed up mess of same fruits that have been ripped up by squirrels and rained on, then the pieces of the actual nut shell to trip over, the fun lasts for a good long time...

Wow, I didn't know acorns grew on oak trees subby.

Ha! got me with my beers down. My bad; acorns not from Hickory trees.

/I'm now going back to the beer.
//posttard

oh the squirrel-manity!

I got bonked on the head by an acorn this year. It dropped through my open sunroof window.

Stand down. Crisis averted.

Acorn....watchers....

Really?

/shamelessly hotlinked

bah...59 seconds

To whom should I mail all of my excess acorns? Come on down to the Florida panhandle for a bumper crop.

That leaves Simmons's theory. Last spring was so wet, he reasoned, perhaps the pollen was washed out of the air and down storm drains before it had time to do its work.

It must be the drought.

I had an abundance of wild hickory nuts and black walnuts this year.

Interesting. Now you mention it, I haven't seen any acorns in CT either. I've caught one of our local squirrels trying to eat the niger seeds from our finch feeder; they don't usually do that.

Hmmm...

We have many 100 year old oaks in our yard. Some years, it's like trying to walk on marbles in the yard, and it sounds like a hailstorm every time there's a breeze.

Not one nut this year, for the first time in 11 years.

As I recall, acorns and other nut trees seem to synchronize fruiting so as to increase the odds that a few acorns will produce new trees. Maybe, like bamboo has every so often, this was an off-year?

No bees?

Kentucky is lousy with them.

Tillmaster: eat the niger seeds

niger please!

Couldn't be scrat. According to the movie timeline, he would be long deceased by now.
/slightly bored

The acorn watchers should have checked a few counties south of Arlington, VA. The acorn crop this year was almost double of anything in the past 5 years. My house sounded like it was under attack- which I guess it was, by the oak trees.

Odd. The black walnut tree in the back yard dropped the usual ton of giant fruits, but the oak was bare. Didn't strike me until I read the article: No acorns. Not a one that I could find. WTF?

Surprisingly here in Oakland NJ...no acorns. Last year I couldn't walk down the front hill without sliding due to acorn overload.

What this all means is that we have to stop using fossil fuels now!

There's going to be starving animals coming out of the wilds to find food.
Including mountain lions and bears.

Hickory and Oak trees often will have years with lots of fruit and years with no fruit. It's quite common, and not necessarily related to environmental factors.

//certified arborist

KingoftheCheese: Couldn't be scrat. According to the movie timeline, he would be long deceased by now.
/slightly bored


I'll see your one 'Flair for the obvious', and raise you one 'Grammar Nazi': Scrat is a proper noun and should be capitalized.

/more bored

Tons of acorns in my yard and fat squirrels - s.e Massachusetts.

JonEdangerousli: as will be everything the next 4 yrs

Twenty at least

Oak and hickory species all coordinate their mast production with neighboring trees. The mechanism is unknown, but the phenomenon is well documented. If they all produced nuts every year, there would be enough squirrels and other nut-consumers to eat all of the nuts every year. Instead they skip years, and entire areas skip together. All species of oaks and hickories are skipping the same year is fairly unlikely, but not at all inconsistent with the pattern.

Now that IS strange, Subby! My Oak tree didn't have any hickory nuts this year either!

/I blame my Bushes
//Did you see what I did there?

Rainbows right at ground level too!

WTF!

I see your "Grammar Nazi" and go all in with my "I was too lazy to hit caps lock on my phone keyboard."

I came in here looking for the obligatory 'Northern Virginia isn't part of Virginia' line. Disappointed.

I've said to at least 3-4 people this hunting season that in the rural area 30-40 miles outside of Richmond,Virginia I was surprised by the large number of acorns I saw. I really haven't paid attention to hickory nuts since squirrel season in September but can't remember anything out of the ordinary. One farm I hunt near Kings Dominion is simply polluted with Black Walnuts. Those trees are healthy.

KingoftheCheese: I was too lazy to hit caps lock on my phone keyboard.

So you admit it is your problem.

My folks live on about four wooded acres just outside Fredericksburg; I've never seen so many goddamn acorns in one place as I did this year at their house. (I grew up with a backyard full of oak trees, too)

I heard that our dry Spring caused the low nut production. Our Lake Cabin at the Ozarks is COVERED in acorns and hickory nuts. We raked and burned the leaves a few weeks ago and had piles of nuts in the fire. They kept exploding, kinda cool...

Scrat. The sole reason I watch(ed) Ice Age.

Yes. I have a problem with laziness when it comes to my phone and being grammatically correct. I wish this phone that does pretty much everything I want it to, except wipe my ass would also have a grammar auto-fix feature.

KingoftheCheese: Yes. I have a problem with laziness

So you still admit it is your problem.

Obama took them all. He's a no good muslim. He planned that terrorist attack in Mumbai so India would allow us to invade Pakistan. RON PAUL.

Is on the case...

Behold the logic of Fark: If there are acorns in MY home state, then this story from Virginia must be false.

Funk Brothers: Obama took them all. He's a no good muslim. He planned that terrorist attack in Mumbai so India would allow us to invade Pakistan. RON PAUL.

This is what happens when the liberal media doesn't investigate Obama's links to ACORN properly. Goddamn liberal media.

Funk Brothers: He planned that terrorist attack in Mumbai so India would allow us to invade Pakistan.

I actually had a friend extend a similar theory to me this week end, except it was regarding that Obama was no longer a Muslim.

*rolls eyes*

My 2 oak trees are producing acorns like it is fricking going out of style. Wish they weren't.

/Not in Virginia

Flying Undead Sheep: This is what happens when the liberal media doesn't investigate Obama's links to ACORN properly. Goddamn liberal media.

Yeah, they didn't check on his birth cretificate or citizenship properly either. There are still people calling Washington Journal on C-SPAN in the morning about the issue.

Nakito: Behold the logic of Fark: If there are acorns in MY home state, then this story from Virginia must be false.

Behold the wisdom of Fark: I SAID I was in central VA, and was drowning in acorns: "The acorn watchers should have checked a few counties south of Arlington, VA. The acorn crop this year was almost double of anything in the past 5 years. My house sounded like it was under attack- which I guess it was, by the oak trees." I guess I really wasn't specific about being in VA, just said a few counties south.
Also, NoVa is not a real part of Virginia

I...I really find this quite sad.