That is nutty!

   If acorns were pennies, I am sure that I would be a millionaire by now.  They are not so, instead, I am just the owner of billions of the nuts.  It appears that every oak tree on the hill decided to bear nuts this year and bear LOTS of them. They are everywhere!  

  Back about a month ago, nighttime was perhaps the noisiest it has ever been.  Several oak trees near the house have huge limbs that hang over the rooftop.  As soon as darkness fell, the coons made their way to the oak trees and started munching the acorns.  It seems that they dropped more than they ate.  Acorns pelted the roof all night long.  It sounded as if we were in the midst of nightly hailstorms.  The clatter would last until sunrise then suddenly stop.  Sleeping was not easy, to say the least.

  Now, acorns are strewn about the entire yard and the squirrels are having a heyday.  Dozens of the critters can be seen fattening themselves for the coming winter months.  I have no problem with the squirrels for a couple of reasons.  First, they are out during the daytime hours and are not pelting the rooftop with nuts.  Second, they are cleaning up a mess that makes it difficult to walk anywhere in the yard.  There are so many acorns that I have to be careful not to slip and slide down the hillside.  Try to imagine walking on a floor covered with marbles and you will understand my predicament.  Thanks to the squirrels, things should be better in a few weeks...hopefully...hopefully, they will not get bellyaches and quit eating the nuts!

Noisy Eaters

  Guests, here on the Bayou, generally show a great deal of respect.  I suppose I just do not tolerate it any other way.  Even back when the kids were younger, there were set rules.  I did not actually "state the rules", they were more or less "understood".  There was one particular incident that occurred with Son's friends.   A newcomer to the bunch was met with each of the standard bunch relating a "rule" to be welcome at the Little Bayou House.  "No drugs or alcohol allowed!" said one young man.  "No cursing!" stated another.  "Share and share alike!" could be heard from one.  "Be respectful!" was next. This went on through each member of the regular crew until it came to the last kid.  There were just no rules left for him to instruct the newcomer so he made one!  "Hug Mom whenever you come and again when you leave!"  Well, now!  That was a pretty good rule!  (And, yep, most of these teenagers at the time called me "Mom".)

  But now there are a few "guests" that have left all respect behind when they visit!  They are loud, squabble constantly, eat all the snacks and do not clean up after themselves!"  For the past few nights, I have listened to four young raccoons that have been raiding the oak trees on the west side of the house.  These oaks have large limbs that reach out over our rooftop so nightly, the critters can be heard squabbling over which limb is the best.  Once they settle down to eat, the racket changes to acorns pelting the rooftop.  A steady rapping that sounds a lot like large hail often wakes me from deep sleep.  This goes on all night until the sun starts to rise in the east.  Rap, rap, rap!  Acorns can be loud on this roof!

  This morning, I checked the ground on the west side of the house and found that not only are the raccoons loud, they are quite wasteful! Thousands upon thousands of plump acorns litter the ground.  I am assuming that once the trees are pilfered of all the nuts, the raccoons will start squabbling under the windows as they fight over the best acorns on the ground.  At least they will be fat for the winter!  They just need to learn a bit of respect!

Late Night Dining!

  Yesterday evening seemed unusually warm.  So much so that I reached over and raised one of the living room windows just a crack.  The night air was refreshing.   As I sat there pondering all of the sounds that could be heard more clearly though the open window, one stood out above the others.  Hmmm?  It sounded a lot like some critter was dining just outside the window.  Scritch, scritch, scritch.  I had to listen carefully to be sure that I even heard the slight noise.  Whatever was having dinner this evening must be small.  A large animal would have surely made a heavier gnawing sound.  I pondered and pondered and just when I was about to gather a flashlight to investigate, I had my answer.  A wee squeak joined the scritching sound.  Ahhh, yes!  The flying squirrels that live in the dead Black Gum Tree must have come down to dine on the acorns that littered the ground.  Other squirrels have not dared to venture so close to the house as these acorns are literally under the front steps.  

  As I listened to the munching sound, a thought occurred to me.  Flying squirrels seldom stay on the ground long.  The little one must have found some "table" on which to enjoy its supper.  This...this, I would have to investigate come morning.  I would leave the tiny critter to enjoy his meal for now.  I even went so far as to not close the window in case I startled the squirrel.  The blind and curtain were soundlessly closed instead.

  This morning, I found the diner where the little squirrel munched.  The gatepost top sufficed as fine tabletop.  With the arbor overhead, the little rascal was protected from owls and the gatepost allowed the little one a good view of ground based predators.  Hopefully, the little one can dine in peace from this day forward.

  All of this reminds me of a tale that I told a few years back.  My sweet daughter-in-law and her adorable friend came to spend the night at the Little Bayou House.  It was the day after Halloween and, of course, I still had candy sitting about the buffet.  At this same time, the house had another visitor.  I had seen a flying squirrel swoop across the dining room from the shelf to the china cabinet.  This did not bother me as I am sort of used to having critters visit but during the night, the squirrel decided to eat the nuts out of one of the candy bars.  I guess when you are hungry, anything will suffice.  Anyway, I showed the girls the gnawed upon candy and explained that there was a squirrel somewhere in the house.  I did not want them to be upset if they were suddenly on the receiving end of a dive-bombing experience.  All went well but I could not leave well enough alone.  I sort of stretched the story to lead Joanna's guest to believe that all houses this far south kept flying squirrels.  "On the Bayou, we get an awful lot of bugs so a flying squirrel or two inside keeps the house pretty much bug-free!" I told her.  At first she was very skeptical but after a lengthy (and obviously convincing) speech, she seemed sure that she would awake during the night with a squirrel in her bed. Oh, that would never do!  I could not fib to Sweet Amy.  I had to confess!  The tale about all houses having flying squirrels was totally fictitious,,,,the part about a squirrel being in the house....totally true.  I am not sure that poor Amy felt any better about sharing her sleeping quarters with a squirrel but I sure felt better about not giving her a line of bull!  That visit was most delightful!  I love those two young ladies!

Let Me In!!!

  I get more critter visitors than I do human.  Here on the Bayou, critters abound but it is a rare occasion when a person decides to call.  I do not mind at all as most of the time, I prefer the critters over humans.  They never complain, never nag and sure do not talk about you behind your back!  Critters seem to have a bit more class!  (Just a little joke there...folks.  Oh, on second thought...maybe not.  I stand by my original statement!)  Anyway, today I had both.  My sweet sister-in-law came to have lunch with me.  We dined upon seafood and salad and had a grand time.  She departed shortly afterwards leaving me to my clue hunt work.  The greenhouse is currently being transformed so out I went.  Along about an hour later, I heard a rattling at the backdoor.  Ms. Nycto, the Bayou Princess, (cat) wanted inside.  This was a bit odd as she normally does not like being in the greenhouse.  It is too noisy for her liking since squirrels keep pounding the roof with acorns.  Still there she was trying to get inside.  There was nothing for me to do other than to bide by her wishes.

  When I opened the door, I saw that another critter was visiting as well. Just off of the deck, a raccoon was busy eating the acorns that the squirrels were dropping.  The little rascal was feasting on the squirrels' leftovers.  Smart coon!  No climbing was required for it to get a bellyful!  

  The young raccoon looked up at me but was not deterred from its dining.  Ms. Nycto scooted through the open door and then eyed the coon from the door's window. She was safe from the monster!  Ahhh, Bayou Princess!  I knew that you prefer my company over the wild critters of the Bayou!

The Enigma of the Acorns is Solved!

Back in mid January, I wrote about finding acorns stuffed in some holes down on the pier posts.  I pondered just what critter had decided to hide its stash two hundred feet out from the shoreline.  Several thoughts came to mind but none were ever satisfactorily confirmed.  The enigma lived on and went unsolved for the past six months.  Although, I watched the pier posts, I never saw any critter that struck me as being an "acorn-eater" ever even come near the area.  I was bewildered.

This evening after our (here lately) usual thunderstorm, I headed to the pier.  This storm, like yesterday's, was quite fierce.  Strong winds and lightning seemed to be the "way of the day"!  Today, we even had a slight bit of hail.  What a difference an hour or so makes!  As I walked the pier, you would have never expected that a violent storm had just passed over the Bayou.  All was calm and peaceful!  As I neared where the marsh meets the water, I saw a flicker of movement on one of the posts.  I motioned for Ms. Ez to stay.  Whatever was on the post had not seen us as of yet but if that big, lumbering dog had her way, no critter would be safe on the pier!  I waited for just a few seconds and then saw what was working so diligently on the post.  A Red Bellied Woodpecker was trying its best to extricate an acorn from the hole in the post!  Aha!  So you are the smart critter that hid your future feast far from filching friends! I watched as the bird went from post to post all the while trying to find an acorn.  I knew that there were still some in the posts but the bird could not get to them.  Earlier, when it had poked the acorns into the man-made holes, it did not take into consideration that later they might be hard to reach.  Each acorn that was shoved in the hole pushed the previous ones further into the post.  Some were a good eight inches in the middle of a hard post. This was proving to be the undoing of the bird's well-laid plan.  Sure, he hid his stash from all the other birds but now he could not get to them himself!  Poor bird, maybe he was not so smart after all!

I am supposing tomorrow I will be the kindhearted friend of the critters and will fetch a stick to help out the hungry bird.  Since the holes were drilled all the way through the posts, I should be able to shove the acorns to one side.  Hopefully, the bird will be able to figure a way of hiding his acorns a bit better this next winter!

Who has been eating my...gate?

At the crack of dawn, I was out painting the three garden gates.  Michael made the gates last year but, for one reason or another, I am just now getting around to painting them.  It did not bother me much since the wood used for the gates was stuff that floated up in a hurricane.  I figured that if the boards had floated around in salt water for a good twenty-four or more hours, a little rainwater could not possibly do any more damage.  Not all of the wood is from just planks.  He used parts of doors, floors, cabinets and even a bedframe!  Each gate is different..very different!  But I like them and since he made them for me, no one had better say a negative thing about them!  Anyway, this morning was painting time!  I decided on red!  Yup..red!

The first gate was easy to paint as it was more flat and did not have a multitude of doodads attached to it.  I made quick work of that one!  The second was a bit more challenging.  This is the one made from an old bedframe.  Michael included the upper part that had a bunch of spindles.  The wrath of the hurricane had broken the leg of the bed which rendered it unusable so..it is now a gate!  I did not mind the extra time it took to paint this gate as it overlooked the bird feeders!  I was entertained to the fullest!  Then came the final gate.  I started at the top and was planning on working my way down from there.  Swash...the paint went smoothly across the top board until..I hit a strange hole!  Hmmm?  This looked mightily like a big bite mark.  Something has been eating my gate!  I could fully  understand this if it had been at the bottom and something was trying to get inside the garden but this gnawed place was at the very top of the gate!  If some critter was trying to get into the garden, since it was already on top of the gate, why did it not just go right on inside?  The bite mark confused me.  Just about then, Michael came into the garden.  I showed him the gnawed place on the gate.  Hmmm?  Yup..same response as mine!  Then we took a closer look.

The gate itself had started to sag a bit as gates have a tendency to do with the wear and tear of age.  The hinges held fast but the boards were starting to pull apart a bit.  This created a nice size crack between the boards.  Deep in the crevice between the boards was an odd assortment of acorns!  A squirrel had obviously used my garden gate as a silo!  Now it was trying to gnaw a doorway so it could get the stored nuts!  Silly squirrel!  How in the world did it find time to do this?  Ms. Ez usually keeps those squirrels on the move!  I suppose that I am going to have to remove the acorns soon since that hungry squirrel will make short work of my gate!  Silly squirrel!  At least, the gates are red, now!!!

Boy, I feel dumb!

After the recent rains, I was elated to find tiny deer tracks up and down the hillside.  Our local deer had babies!!!  My oldest brother saw the tracks in his yard as well!  Wow!  Lots of baby deer!  There was just one thing that was a tad troubling...there were no Mama Deer tracks along side of the little ones.  Hmmm...had Mama Deer abandoned these tykes? (There seemed to be many more than one!)  In the past few years, the herd had grown to seven known does and one buck so I could see why we might have several little ones about the area.  Still, that did not account for no Mama Deer.  I did not think much more about this for a number of days.  My oldest brother did call notice to the tracks in his garden to my other brother that lives right next door.  While he was looking at the tracks, he made the remark that they really did not look like deer tracks.  Well, now!  Just what in the world did he think made the tracks??  Well, we got our answer the other evening.

Pigs!!  All evidence points to PIGS!  There was a very heavy crop of acorns this year.  Nigh on every tree is carpeted beneath with a healthy layer of the nuts. Mark and I were recently remarking at how loud they crunched under our feet as we took our daily hikes.   It seems the hogs are coming in to dine upon the plentiful nuts.  Down the lane there is one huge oak tree that towers over the rest.  The driveway was thick with the nuts just a mere week ago then the hogs came!  Under the tree looked a lot like someone took a plow to it!  The soil was turned as if a garden was to be planted!  Each night since, the pigs have visited a different tree and turned the hard ground into soft, tilled earth!   The nuts were gleaned from the land..even those that lay buried beneath the leaves and a layer of dirt.  Nothing escaped the snout of the hogs!

I am just wondering what is to become of my gardens!  Michael is working fast and hard to finish the fencing before anything tempting begins to grow.  Hopefully, the acorns will lure the hogs to the oak trees for a bit longer and the garden will be safe.  As for the pigs?  I read where the entire Southeast is being inundated with wild hogs.  The feral critters are not hunted as they once were and with laws not allowing hunting within the city limits, there is no stopping them.  Not many predators will attempt to take down a grown hog.  Coyotes will hunt the shoats or piglets but know to steer clear of a full grown hog.  Actually in lean times, the hogs are their greatest threat.  These critters are not above cannibalism.  The young, if left unprotected, soon become meals for marauding grown hogs.  Not fair..not fun..not a happy thought but true.  Something will soon have to be done to maintain the hog population before they become a threat to neighborhood pets and even hikers like myself.  I have never felt threatened during my hikes but know from growing up on the farm that you never trust a boar.  I might have to rethink my hiking areas a bit!  PIGS!  Who would have thought?  This thing called "Progress" is shooing all sorts of critters onto our property.  When the land around us is being clear-cut, I guess the animals have no choice but to run to our last bit of rugged area.  But hogs?  Now what?   * By the way, I do not feel to bad about not recognizing the tracks as hogs.  I was told that some seasoned hunters mistake hog tracks as deer tracks!  Whew!  I feel a tad better!

Brains over brawn..

 Every now and again,  Mother Nature goes and proves beyond a doubt one of the truisms that man has conjured.  Perhaps this is just a way of keeping our human pride in a bit of check by showing that the critters of this world also think...and at times, think better than we do! After working all day in the gardens, I made a quick run to the pier just at sunset.  The sun was fast slipping behind the pines on the opposite shore so I did not have a lot of time to dawdle.  Still, something a tad strange caught my eye.

Keep in mind that our pier stretches a good two hundred or more feet from the shore.  Not too many "land" critters make their way all the way to the end over the water. Perhaps the openness of the marsh and water makes them feel vulnerable to predators or perhaps they have just never had the urge to venture down the long stretch of planks.  It is true that ducks, geese, pelicans and other waterfowl occasionally visit the end of the pier but rarely anything else.  Yet, I am quite sure that none of the waterfowl were the perpetrators of the scene that I encountered on today's visit.  Our pier was made mostly using recycled lumber.  This included the large posts that keep the whole thing in place.  These posts bear evidence of their previous use via holes drilled through them at varying heights.  It was what I found hidden in these holes that led me to think that some land-loving critter had visited the pier often.  Poked deep inside each hole were acorns!  Lots of acorns that some critter had stored there for the winter!  I do not think this was done by squirrels...surely!  By the rat-a-tat-tat that I hear all day, I would have said that woodpeckers might be the perpetrator but then, again, blue jays have been known to store nuts for future use.  But why in the pier posts?  Unless....

As I sat pondering the enigma, a thought entered the head!  Two things actually occurred to me!  Maybe whatever critter hid the nuts in the posts grew tired of having other critters find and eat their other stored ones.  By hiding the acorns all the way  down at the end of the pier, the stash would not be easily found by other land critters.  The other thought?  The posts had pre-drilled holes!  If this (most likely) was a bird, that bird did not have to use brute force to peck holes in a tree!  The bird was using its brain over brawn!  Smart bird!  Smart in many ways!  The holes were already accessible allowing for more time to gather nuts! The posts are in a remote location, not many others would find the stash!  The post are durable unlike a dead tree ensuring that the nuts would remain intact! Waterfowl would have a hard time retrieving the nuts even if they wanted them! Good job!

Now, my job comes!  I need to watch the pier more closely to discover just what type bird (or other critter) is using the pier posts!  It will definitely be interesting to find this intelligent critter!

And the saga continues!

Yesterday, I got a wild hair about using acorns to make flour. It seemed like a good idea at the time since there is a bumper crop of the little nuts just littering the yard. I figured that if the Native Americans could make tasty treats using this flour, then so could I! Free baking goods are always handy for someone who loves to bake and even more..loves to eat baked goods! I researched the method, gathered and shelled my acorns and then leached the bitterness from the nuts. This, in itself, was a long drawn out process and I must admit that several times during the shelling and leaching steps, I was nigh on quitting the entire project. I persevered, though, and managed to get the acorns in the dehydrator late last evening. Then I wearily laid down for what was to be a few minutes rest. I knew that I needed to check the acorns periodically so that they would not "burn" in the dehydrator. My dehydrator does not have an automatic timer and I have to manually unplug the machine when the desired dryness is reached. ....... I fell into a deep sleep! I did not check the acorns until 5AM....oops! Still, they were fine so all's well that ends well!

Today! Today became the finishing day for the flour! After the nuts cooled, I threw them into the blender as beating them to pieces with a rock like the Native Americans did long ago, seemed to be a mite too much work. These acorns already were about a 400 on the "difficulty scale" of 1 to 10! Way too much work! The "flour" turned out well but is rather coarse. This could be as a result of using the blender and not a grinder but since I like a "heavier" bread, I decided that the texture was fine. It is a beautiful golden brown ..comparable to the color of brown sugar! Back to the researching! Now, I needed a recipe! I found several for muffins but after reading a dozen or so, I just "winged" it and created my own! All the recipes called for half acorn flour and have all-purpose wheat flour...this I could do! To my muffins, I added diced apple, cranberries and honey! I wanted to keep with the "earthiness" of theme since I was using the acorns!

I must admit that throwing the muffins together was an easy task and while baking..they smelled divine! Upon tasting the delectable treats, both Son and I decided that a tad of sugar added to the recipe would have made the muffins tastier. I had not accounted for the slight bitterness of the acorn flour. Still..they were quite delicious with a nutty but grainy flavor. Question..Would I do this all again? Probably..just not on a constant basis. I am one that does get these crazy ideas now and again! So..yes..I probably will..much to the annoyance of those that I con into helping me! Once I tweak the recipe for the muffins, I will include it in the "Cooking on the Bayou" page as I am quite sure that any ground nuts could be substituted for the acorns.

~~Just a note..acorns like all nuts are good for you! They are full of nutrients and acorns have the added plus of being lower in fats than most nuts. There are studies being conducted on their ability to lower blood sugar levels, too! ~~

Something is nutty about this!

I was off on another tangent this afternoon! Last evening, I was reading about the Native Americans and their use of acorns in baking. They would dry the nuts and grind them into a flour! Since the yard is covered in acorns and the rooftop is constantly being pelted by the little gravel-sized nuts, I figured that I might like to give this a try! Personally, I had never been a big fan of the incredibly bitter-tasting acorns but hey!...if there is a method of making them palatable then I say, "Why not?" I eagerly read up on the process of "leaching" the bitterness from the nuts and thought to myself.."That is not to overly difficult!" Ha! Was I in for a surprise!

This afternoon after chores were finished, I set out to collect my acorns! They were everywhere..the ground was littered with the nuts! My little pail should be filled in no time at all! I proceeded to pick up the nuts as I gather pecans..the old tried and true method of "reach down and grab"! I picked..and picked..and picked. Keep in mind that I only had a one gallon pail..so when I tell you that it was taking hours, you can see why I might have been having a bit of a complaint! I finally just gave up filling the pail and brought what I had picked into the house. The little bucket WAS close to being full!

Now came about the job of shelling my acorns! This should not be difficult as acorns have relatively thin shells unlike pecans! I squished an acorn between my fingers..yep..the nut felt sort of rubbery. Maybe I picked them a bit green..but they WERE on the ground so they should be ripe and ready to use. I squished again..ahhh..there was the "crack"! Off went the shell..my first acorn meat was in the bowl! Now I just had several hundred more to do! Get crackin'! I found it was easier to use a paring knife to slit the sides of the green nuts and then slip the meat from the shell. The harder brown nuts were a different story..they would need to be cracked. This proved a bit difficult as the nut cracker was too large for the teeny acorns. I resorted to using a pair of pliers. After about an hour of shelling (with the help of Mark, my oldest son) a grand total of half of the acorns were shelled. The other several billion still sat in the little pail. Hmmmm..my hands were getting sore so I called it quits on the shelling. Tomorrow, the others will be cracked and leached but now...on with the bitterness-leaching process!

To remove the bitterness from the acorns, the instructions said that I needed to heat some water until it was boiling, add the acorns and let them sit for about ten minutes. The water should turn brownish..maybe looking a bit like tea. This brownness is the tannins being leached from the acorn. Come to find out, it is the tannins that cause the bitterness..well, that makes sense! (Sure, it does..hmmm?) Anyway, after the water turns tea-looking, I was to drain off the nasty stuff and repeat with fresh, boiling water until the water stayed clear. "I can do this!", I said as I started humming a little ditty. "This is the way we wash the acorns..wash the acorns..wash the acorns. This is the way we wash the acorns in the early afternoon!" Yeah, I know..not quite the right words but I was feeling quite chipper today! I washed and drained..washed and drained...washed..and so on.

I am on my tenth rinsing and the "tea" is still just as dark as it was with the first wash. Something is wrong with this picture! So.....I asked Son, Michael, to taste an acorn. "Test this!", I said brightly all the while trying to not let on that I was dubious about trying one myself! He bit into the acorn and chewed. Nothing..no reaction whatsoever! Nada, zilch, nothing! I fully expected his face to screw up into a knot and for his eyes to water..nothing. He looked at me and said.."Not bad." Well, I will take that "Not bad." as a good enough! The leaching is finished! (Or at least I hope it is!)

The instructions went on to say that I should now dry the acorns. Wait a minute! Did I not just soak these suckers for the last five hours? Now I am supposed to dry them? Oh, geez!....this is taking forever! I already have eight hours invested in what will amount to about two cups of acorns! Dry them!??? Ok..I pulled out the dehydrator and set about drying the acorns. This flour sure better be good!

I will keep you posted on the saga of the acorn flour!