Went to a soccer game...

 … and an acorn fight broke out.

We spent last Saturday at a soccer tournament in Templeton, CA (yes, as a matter of fact my son did score another goal, thanks for asking – and yes, it was left-footed, as he will tell you ad infinitum even if you don’t ask).

Between matches, the boys discovered enough of these to feed a medium-sized village for a year (which, of course, they did in simpler/better times):

(Click to enlarge)

 

California white oak (Q. lobata) acorns – BIG ones.  Big, pointy ones.

And the boys did what 11 year old boys would naturally do:  Someone yelled “acorn fight!” and they started chucking them at each other.  Acorns: Staff of Life, handy projectile.

Except one kid, who gingerly picked up an acorn and looked in amazement at the tiny radicle that had started to sprout from it.  You could see the mental wheels turning:  So this is where an oak tree comes from.  He showed it to his dad, then saw I was watching the scene and he showed it to me.  I asked if he planned to plant it and he said yes.  We wrapped it in a t-shirt for safe transport home, and I’m happy to report that by the time of the team pizza party (my favorite part of every soccer season) later that evening the acorn had been safely planted in a pot.  Very cool.

No, that wasn’t my kid.  He was too busy becoming an acorn Gatling gun to notice things like sprouting radicles.  Proving, of course, that the acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree.

To Plant An Acorn...

... is to know, in a funny sort of way, what a bird on her nest feels when waiting for her eggs to hatch.

So many parallels.  The same sense of expectancy.  The same constant, gnawing worry and doubt: Is it too cold? Too wet? Too dry? Did I tend the "eggs" properly since I gathered them last fall? Is the "nest" sufficient for the task?  The same impatience.  The same fear of predation.  The same dread certainty that you get one crack at this (so to speak) each year.

And in my case, as my children are fond of telling me, the same large, pointed beak.  And as I am fond of pointing out in return, they each have half my genes, ticking inside them like a little nasal time bomb.

What traits will transfer to my acorns?  Did the large acorned parent beget this trait to the acorns I happened to gather, and that happen to germinate for me?  Which acorns might be hybrids, secretly containing half the genetic code of another "species?"

A watched pot never boils.  I hope to God that watched acorns germinate... because I'll be watching the heck out them!

Pledge Drive Getting Closer!

The pledge drive to plant 20 new oak trees by the end of the year over at Mast Tree Network is getting closer!  13 down and just 7 to go.

Unfortunately for those of us up on the frozen tundra, permafrost has set in for the year and any tree planting would require a blow torch and a pickax.  So if the drive is going to meet its goal (and it will meet its goal!) it will have to be by readers in milder climes who get it done.

Although come to think of it if you're in the northland and planted oak seedlings or acorns earlier in the fall and didn't sign the pledge, I'm sure that would work too!

One way or another, let's push the drive over the top.  Don't make me go all Jerry Lewis on Labor Day weekend (or NPR on the last day of pledge drive) on you.

Which, unfortunately for you, reminds me of a story.  As a kid, sitting in Mass every Sunday, it always seemed to me that "Annual" Catholic Appeal occurred much more frequently than once a year.  One time, while listening to the Bishop's tape-recorded appeal for support, I whispered to my dad (and probably none too quietly), "Dad, isn't this the third annual appeal this year?"  Sheesh, by the look on his face you'd think I had stolen the Sacrimental wine or something.

This pledge drive is different. It's once per year. But every bit as spiritually renewing. 

Go forth and plant.

Mission Accomplished, Prairie Now a Savannah

Well I've done my part!  The very cool Mast Tree Network has challenged us sign a pledge promising to plant an oak tree yet this year.  They have asked for 20 pledgers.  We're up to 5 and gaining momentum.

I just got back from planting 3 bur oak seedlings in a natural area owned by my kids' elementary school and managed by an amazingly dedicated group of volunteers.  Part of the natural area is a gorgeous tallgrass prairie:

Somewhere amidst that sea of grass there are now three tiny bur oaks, which Aldo Leopold called the stormtroopers of the prairie:

OK, that probably doesn't look like a stormtrooper to you, but I'm telling you this little dude is fierce.  Here's the back story on these three trees.  I gathered the acorns last fall from beneath three massive bur oaks on the gorgeous campus of Carleton College (yes, there is terrific fishing in those ponds, but please don't tell anyone).  Many of those acorns were eaten last winter (which explains the clarity of my thinking during that time frame and the quantum steps I made in my career!), most were planted this past spring, and some languished in the fridge well into the summer.  They didn't stay in the fridge for the sole purpose of annoying my wife, Alice, but that was the practical effect.  It's just: how can you throw acorns away?

Then to prove to a friend in the nursery business that I could plant acorns in pots ridiculously late and still grow bigger trees than he had starting from acorns early in the spring, I planted them on July 16.  I have shown you what the English oaks that I also planted on that date did; one of them, in a prototype tree tube, reached 15" after only emerging from the soil on August 1.  The bur oaks were slower to germinate, and didn't grow as much - in part because the acorns weren't the size of golf balls like the English oaks giving them a supercharged dose of early carbs, and in part because they were in a shadier spot than the English oaks.  Still, they did very well; the one in the prototype grow tube reached nearly 10 inches.

Most importantly, at least to me, is that my oaks planted late in the season ended up as big as my nursery manager friend's spring planted oaks.  Braggin' rights!  I was even more impressed with how much root development happened in the short period of time since July 16.

And no, I did not leave those little stormtroopers out there naked and along to fight their way through the prairie grass and the deer, who bed down just feet away from where I planted and who are now regular visitors on our old residential street several blocks away.  They are safe inside plastic tree tubes.  We watched Apollo 13 last weekend, and as I lowered the tree tube over the seedling I couldn't help thinking of it as an oak launcher.  I'm already counting down until spring when I can say:  Houston, we have lift off.

Choice acorns, hand selected from amazing parent trees, and planted within 2 miles of their source as part of a savannah restoration.  That's a rewarding afternoon's work.  Thank you Mast Tree Network for being my impetus!