Kamikaze Acorns

"Ready, set, GO!" I yell from the safety of my doorway. The kids, who were huddled around my legs, dash down the steps and run full speed to the van. They have already decided that McKenzie will slide the door open - - - this makes sense because her long legs make it inevitable that she will reach the door first. As they jump into the van, I glance down one last time at Miles, kicking in his car-seat, and pull the sunshade over his little body. Picking up the diaper bag, my car keys and the heavy car-seat, I step out onto the first step, close the door behind me, duck my head, and clumsily wobble to the car as fast as I can with my heavy load.

I breathe a sigh of relief as I slide into the drivers-seat and bask for a moment in our victory. *plunk* The moment is brief, however, for after a few passing seconds, *plunk* the sound of acorns hitting the top of the van, fills our ears. *plunk........plunk plunk*

Kamikaze Acorns.

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It's windy. Brian and I are just about to plop into bed when a strong gust of wind blows through the trees outside sending sheets of acorns down on our house. It sounds like heavy rain on a tin roof as they hit, then like rolling marbles on a tile floor as they roll down to the roof's edge, and then like mad, wrestling squirrels as they fall into the crunchy leaves below.

We stand there, in the middle of our room staring wordlessly into each others wide, surprised eyes. "I don't remember this happening last year," I say anxiously.
"Me neither," he replies.
"Do you think we were supposed to, like, treat the trees with some sort of something that might make them not produce so many acorns?" (After several 'we're-supposed-to-do-what' moments concerning home ownership over the last year, it was an honest, legit question.)
"Nah," he says reassuringly, "I remember an article from CNN last year about how there was an eerily low supply of acorns last fall. Maybe this is normal and last year was abnormal." It becomes clear to me at this point that I have married a nerd. He actually read an article about acorns...and remembered it a year later. After laughing at him for a few minutes, he pulls up the actual article and, sure enough, there apparently was a shortage of acorns last year.

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Yes, they may be small and look like harmless little squirrel snacks, but trust me, when you hear those acorns free-falling from 75 feet in the air, you'd better take cover...

...and hope that next year will bring about the same eerie deficit in acorns as the last.