Nut Wizard Picks ‘em Up to Create a Squirrel Magnet

by | Nov 28, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging

Man emptying walnuts on the ground for the squirrels.

Creating dinner

This fall we borrowed a Nut Wizard nut picker-upper from a friend and helped neighbors harvest gallons of black walnuts. We dumped them in our backyard and, over several weeks, delightedly watched a progression of squirrels haul them off to eat and bury.

They scurried off in all directions carrying a single nut in their teeth. After hundreds of squirrel trips our nut pile was gone. Those ambitious squirrels buried walnuts all over our property.

 

 

 

Derecho Destruction and Re-seeding Nut-Bearing Trees

Most folks don’t want or need walnuts sprouting in their yards but want to clear the yard of various nuts that fall from trees each autumn. The simple answer is investing in a nut wizard or borrowing one.  This handy gizmo, which comes in several brand names, rolls along easily capturing nuts that you can then drop into buckets to dispose of. Eastern Iowa suffered a huge tree loss in 2020 when a derecho smacked us with 140 mph winds. Mature trees fell like matchsticks. Since then, we have been “reforesting” timber patches and urban streets and yards. Using a nut wizard to pick up nuts and re-purpose them helps reforest our area. This is a far better option than dumpstering them. A local nature center or park might be a good option to help replant lost trees. Or you can learn to shuck and process nuts for eating.

Squirrels Do the Work

Squirrel burying nut

Squirrels bury nuts in caches to retrieve them later.

Back to our squirrels. One morning we watched one use its front legs to dig a hole beneath our window, drop a nut in, cover it with dirt, and pat it neatly down. We’re sure it will be its breakfast on a cold January morning. Not all nuts get dug up, so we expect to find walnut seedlings all over our yard in the coming years.

 

 

 

Nuts An Amazing Food

Nuts are an amazing food for squirrels and people. Unlike most foods, nuts don’t spoil for months. Humans worldwide throughout history harvested walnuts, hickory nuts, filberts, chestnuts, and acorns and put them into storage for delicious eating during food-scarce winters.

Nuts are loaded with protein, oil, fiber, and vitamins. Squirrels, many bird species, deer, bears, and chipmunks have always eagerly gathered and stored wild nuts, but generally people today shun harvesting for good reason.

In past years people gathered and processed nuts. It took time and effort to collect, process, and store them. It’s much work. Planned “nutting parties” were somewhat festive occasions where neighbors gathered to collect and process nuts together.  Probably many tall tales and gossip were shared that made the tedious processing more interesting.

Today it’s much easier to buy nuts at the grocery store but wild nuts remain a viable food.

 Common Nuts for Wildlife and Human Food

Black Walnuts: Common in suburbia and woods edges, black walnut trees drop messy nuts by the zillions every early fall. Removing the husk, cracking the shell, and picking out the nut meat is a tedious and messy chore that yields delicious additions to cookies and cakes.

Chestnuts: The American Chestnut tree once ranged throughout Eastern North America and produced enormous quantities of nuts that were relatively easy to collect and process.  Unfortunately, an exotic blight killed nearly all the trees a century ago.  Today similar nuts are dropped from related Chinese and hybrid trees that resist the blight.

Hickories: Pecans are a species of hickory that grow mostly in the south, but Shagbark and Shellbark Hickory have a much wider range and are equally delicious. One hickory, the Bitternut, produces nuts so bitter even the squirrels leave them alone.

Acorns: Oaks worldwide produce nutritious acorns esteemed by wildlife but generally shunned by people. We prefer gathering White Oak acorns and processing them carefully before storing the resulting flour to add to muffins, pancakes, and cookies.

We’ve shared information on how to identify, collect, process, and eat nuts in past blogs. Plenty of information is also online on how to do it.  


At Winding Pathways we’re so happy to share walnuts with squirrels that we use a Nut Wizard to collect them in friend’s yards and bring them to ours.

Furless Tailed Squirrels Revisited

by | Sep 5, 2024 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging, Mammals

A few years ago, after seeing many squirrels with nearly naked tails we researched and posted a blog in February 2022. Furless Tailed Squirrels.
The response amazed us. People from around the world visited it and still do every day. We had no idea this condition was so widespread.

So, we’re posting a follow-up. Two winters have passed and our squirrels now have perfectly normal furry tails. We’re unsure if older squirrels have regrown fur or if the new generation never had the condition. Since most squirrels don’t live for more than a few years, we will likely see younger animals.

Whatever conditions caused them to lose their fur seem over. That’s not unusual in wildlife populations. If a serious disease or calamity reduces the population the condition subsides and survivors reproduce with enthusiasm, rapidly restoring abundance.

Based on our website traffic we suspect furless-tailed squirrels have been found far and wide. We predict that they, like our Iowa squirrels, will rebound with healthy furry-tailed animals.

A Short Squirrel Primer

Although many people dislike squirrels for their habit of gobbling up feed intended for birds, we like them. Squirrels are just as fascinating as goldfinches or cardinals, so we put out enough seed for both.

During the 2024 Summer Olympics, we were thrilled watching the graceful and powerful movements of Simone Biles, other gymnasts, and pole vaulters like, Armand “Mondo” Duplantis.

Squirrel climbing up a tree.

What happens when a squirrel falls?

We’ve not heard of a comparable competition for squirrels, but they are also amazing gymnasts and vaulters. In our yard a small oak and a large walnut live next to each other. Every fall the walnut is loaded with nuts that tempt squirrels. We love watching them climb the oak to its tippy top and then make an amazing upward leap to a flimsy walnut twig above. Like human gymnasts and vaulters, squirrels have impeccable balance, flexibility, strength, determination, and courage.

 

Treetop leaps aren’t always successful. Twice we’ve seen squirrels slip off high oak branches and fall 30 or 40 feet to the lawn below. Both times the hapless animals spread eagle, landed with a thump, and scampered off apparently uninjured.  They are an amazing animal.

Late Summer Activity

As we write this in late summer walnuts and acorns are maturing. People may not like squirrels but these trees need them so much their annual nut crop is a bribe. Squirrels eagerly gather and eat many of the nuts but they scamper off and bury some, often a long way from the parent tree. Some nuts are never dug up and become a new tree generation. The exchange is a good deal for both trees and squirrels.

The rodents get nutritious food. Walnuts and acorns get free tree planting. Both win.

Hopefully, anyone reading this is enjoying squirrels that have grown fur on their once furless tails. Enjoy these amazing animals. To learn more about squirrels visit Animal Diversity.

What is a Magnet Oak?

by | Oct 26, 2023 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Garden/Yard, Nature, Trees

Magnet bur oak

Magnet bur oak in front yard

We didn’t intend to create a magnet when we planted a skinny bur oak in our front yard 13 years ago.

It created a startling experience one October evening when Marion went to the porch to check the weather. A large furry form dropped from the nearby tree and scurried away in the gathering darkness. A woodchuck? Not likely. They work the day shift. Later we caught the mystery animal in the bean of a flashlight as it returned to the magnet tree. A husky raccoon that again retreated in haste when it saw us.

Over the next several days we watched squirrels and woodchucks forage on the acorns. At dusk bucks and does with yearlings eagerly, yet watchfully, gobbled up acorns. In between, turkeys wandered by to forage. Blue jays dropped out of the tree onto the ground and carried off husky acorns to store for winter.

Why Oaks Attract Wildlife

Our October oak was a perfect magnet. While most area oaks were acorn-bare, our youthful front yard tree was loaded with them. They were huge, sweet, and free of the weevils that often consume acorns before exiting through tiny holes.

Blue jays, wild turkeys, woodchucks, raccoons, squirrels, and deer consider October acorns prime carbohydrate-loaded food. When few oaks, scattered around, bear a heavy crop, wild animals beeline to those loaded with nuts. That’s why our tree was a magnet drawing in a stream of wildlife until every acorn was consumed.

General Types of Oaks

White oak types have leaves with rounded lobes. These include white, bur, and swamp white oaks. Their big acorns are low in tannic acid and are a prized animal and human food. Most trees only bear a heavy crop every few years with acorns that sprout almost as soon as they hit the ground. If not eaten soon weevils find them.

Black oak types have leaves with pointed lobes. Their acorns are loaded with bitter tannin. Often wild animals only feast on them after nearby sweeter white oak-type acorns have all been eaten. Black oak-type acorns wait until next spring to sprout. Perhaps their tannic acid helps them remain uneaten until they sprout months after falling from the tree.

Optimal Places to Plant Oaks

When planted in an ideal location with full sun and rich soil, an oak will begin producing acorns when it’s seven to ten years old. Our front yard tree had a light crop the past few years, but when it reached its 13th year it was loaded with nuts. It was a true magnet that lured wildlife in from far and wide. We enjoyed watching many animals dine on acorns produced by a tree we planted.

Why Is An Acorn Crop Erratic?

by | Sep 19, 2019 | (Sub)Urban Homesteading, Foraging, Nature, Trees

Delicious, Erratic Acorns

Our back deck at Winding Pathways is an outstanding vantage point for watching butterflies, birds, and even our evening aerialist bats. The deck is perched over a deep, cool ravine with a stately black oak hovering above. That can be a problem.

In most autumns our black oak cascades acorns down to the ground and our deck. Removing them takes aggressive sweeping. Despite the hassle we love acorns.

Oaks

Acorns are, of course, the seeds of oak trees. Hundreds of oak species live across much of the northern hemisphere. They can be a little tricky to identify since oaks sometimes hybridize and look like a blend of two or more species. Many people use leaf shape to identify trees, but oaks may throw a curve. Often leaves, called sun leaves, up on the top of an individual tree are smaller and may have a somewhat different shape than those down lower on the same tree. It can be confusing.

There are two general oak types, the white and red oak groups. White oak type trees include species commonly called white, swamp white bur (sometimes spelled burr), chinkapin also spelled chinquapin, and chestnut oaks. Their leaves have rounded lobes and they produce large acorns with low acid content. Red oak type trees include species commonly called red, black, and pin oaks. Their leaves have pointed lobes and their acorns are usually small and laden with bitter acid.

Acorns

Acorns are nature’s gift to many wildlife species and people. Few seeds are as abundant, large, and nutritious as acorns. Squirrels, chipmunks, muskrats, woodchucks, deer, bears, blue jays, wild turkeys, and a host of other animals gorge on them. The calorie-rich nuts help wildlife put on fat that helps them survive the coming winter.

But, there’s a problem. Oaks are erratic acorn producers. As a general rule, the white oak types only create a heavy crop every few years. Red oak type trees are more reliable but still sometimes skip a year of seed production. Sometimes few oaks in a vast area will produce acorns while an individual tree here and there will be loaded.  Find a heavy acorn bearer in a scare year and you’ll have the company of many animals feeding on the nutritious nuts.  Part of the reason for erratic crops stems from pollination. Oaks are wind-pollinated and a long spell of rain when they bloom in the spring can dampen pollination and eliminate a crop that autumn.

Acorns are a delicious human food that was relished by native people across the globe.   To learn more about acorns and how to process them into food check out the Winding Pathways blog of August 2014 called Delicious Acorns. 

 

Turkeys: Gift To the World

by | Nov 24, 2015 | Birds, Chickens, Nature

Turkey

Strutting his stuff

As we enjoy Thanksgiving dinner we pay homage to the great gift the Americas gave the world.

Beef, pork, lamb, and chicken all come from animals with Old World origins. Shortly after Europeans discovered North and South America, Australia, New Zealand, and other new worlds they introduced these familiar and useful farm animals. Before Columbus made landfall, Native Americans knew nothing about these exotic animals. But, they knew turkeys.

Of all common meat animals eaten today only turkeys came from the New World.  Before Columbus, wild turkeys abounded across much of North America. Their domestic cousins were tended by some tribes. Treated with great care, the domesticated turkeys were an important source of clothing, tools and food. Among some uses of the tribes of the Four Corners of the United States, turkeys provided feathers for coats, eggs for eating and reproduction, and bones for tools. Evidence exists that the Native Americans cross bred for certain valued characteristics. Europeans quickly developed a taste for turkey and brought them eastward across the Atlantic where they became a common European food.

Our Thanksgiving dinner consists of turkey, potatoes, and winter squash, all Native American foods. Sometimes we add acorn muffins and capstone the meal with a long time family recipe for pumpkin pie, made from a plant that also originated here.