Watching The Squirrels . . .

We have two Red Oak trees in front of our house.  They were planted by the house builder in his efforts to landscape the house.  These trees are maturing now and are producing acorns.  I am told they start at 12 years of age to produce acorns.  Well they have been planted now for a little over 13 years.

The produce rather big acorns.  They are not as big as a Burr Oak but much larger than the locally common Post Oaks.  Thus they are desirable by the squirrels.

We have two young squirrels beginning to feast on the acorns.  Both of our trees are quite healthy and have both been treated for Oak Wilt.  Oak Wilt is a common disease and much worse, is common for our locality.  So we paid a handsome sum for their treatment.  I can say that after the treatment they looked very healthy.  I am not so sure what the treatment is, but it appears to be a solution and the trees readily suck it up.

I have over the years also fertilized the trees.  At first I just used a balance fertilizer, poking holes in the ground at the drip line and pouring a handful of the fertilizer.  Later I used tree spikes, more solid, and probably take longer to dissolve, thus provide for a longer period of time that the trees are fed.  And of course, the lawn people also fertilize two or three times a year.  All of that makes for two pretty healthy and now quite large trees.

By large I mean they are probably about 14 or so inches in diameter.  And they stand well above our roof line providing a great deal of shade to the west facing front of the house.  They are big enough so that the grass will not grow under them, too much shade for the grass.

Any way I watched this little squirrel dash about looking for a place to bury his acorn.  It perturbed him and he chased about looking for just the right spot.  As he was doing that his competitor, another small squirrel scamper up the tree to get his acorn.  That seemed to bother him too.  His turf was being invaded by an enemy, or at least a competitor.

Of course, there are dozens of acorns on the ground as the tree is dropping them all over the place.  He does not really have to climb to get any acorns but he does.  Last year there was a first and a bumper crop of acorns.  So much so that we have a bunch of little trees sprouting all over the place.  That is not a bad thing, just a fact.

Soon the trees will drop their leaves.  The one on the left front does it first and then the second one on the right does it.  It is just genetics.  While they are the same species, they have different parents so to speak and one tree is always ahead of the other tree.  Their cycles are just a tiny bit different.

No matter the squirrels love them.