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| Grey Squirrel by Kev from Pixabay |
As I watched one of this little rascal's cousins trot over to one of my raised beds and quickly bury an acorn I was reminded of a great story about acorns.
Some English naval officers used to carry acorns in their pockets so they could plant oak trees -- so England would never lack for good oak for the masts of her fighting ships. One officer is reported to have planted hundreds of thousands of acorns over his career.
That made me think of the motivations of my sciurid neighbor: Was he storing the acorn? Or is there an deeper motivation?
Can they remember where they put them? Does underground storage make bitter acorns more palatable?
Maybe God built this trick into their brains and then smiled because he knew this food storage method would mean most would become oak trees which would feed many future squirrels.
It's easy to think of these little guys as graceful arboreal rats but not very smart. But honestly, the more I learn about our fellow animal travelers on the Earth the more I realize there is deep wisdom among them. Squirrels know oak trees and the forests in which they grow in ways we will never understand. Perhaps they understand in ways that would not compute to us that some acorns should always be planted so future generations of squirrels yet unborn will always have food.
All I really know for sure is that I am forever pulling yearling oak saplings out of the ground where we live. Those acorns did not get so deep by accident. Squirrels plant a LOT of acorns.
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