Posted on : September 14th, 2018
The squirrels in my backyard are gathering nuts like crazy. And that’s VERY fun to watch because our local squirrels are very smart and cunning! You see, the squirrels in my neighborhood like to go from yard to yard by traveling on the rail just below the top of the fence line where they can’t be seen. They then pick a spot to look over the fence and bark, doing their very best imitation of a dog. Why? Because they know that if there is a dog in the yard it will bark back! In fact, they have a lot of fun taunting the dogs in the neighborhood by running down the trees along the fence, barking, towards the dogs but just out of reach. The dogs go crazy and the squirrels just laugh! But here’s the smart part: if no dog barks in a particular yard, they jump right in and gather up the nuts that have fallen from the trees overnight and bring them back to either eat right away or store for winter.
And, as I said, the squirrels are hard at their winter nut gathering right now. And that reminded me, does that mean it’s going to be a particularly cold hard winter?
The Old Farmer’s Almanac won’t make a hard and fast prediction when it comes to that. There’s a saying: Squirrels gathering nuts in a flurry, Will cause snow to gather in a hurry. But squirrels are ALWAYS in a flurry when it comes to gathering nuts and it’s nut harvesting season!
But there is also old folklore that says if there is an exceptionally good crop of nuts—hence MORE squirrel nut-gathering activity earlier in the year—that also predicts a hard winter. This HAS been a good year for nut growers in California but the Old Farmer’s Almanac is predicting that an El Niño season will bring warmer temperatures across most of the country this winter, not so harsh for squirrels at all. Of course, you can’t put too much stock in that prediction— after all they’re not infallible, only about 80% accurate (according to them) since 1792!
So, needless to say, this blog post might be considered pretty meaningless — perhaps just an excuse for me to post a photo of a really cute squirrel eating a nut.
Squirrel photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: CC-BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en).
Maisie Jane’s California Sunshine Products, Inc. was founded on strong beliefs and passion for offering unique, flavorful, top-quality, nut products. We strongly believe in earth-friendly practices that start on our family owned and operated orchards. We use Organic farming practices and continue in the process by using all-natural ingredients with no preservatives or GMOs. We believe in honest, friendly and helpful customer relations at all levels. We take pride in every task, every day, with every person.
© 2015-2024 Maisie Jane's
WEBSITE DESIGN BY: HALF A BUBBLE OUT | ADVERTISING & MARKETING
