The previous residents fell in love with our son, Mathew, and left him a wonderful bench swing that hangs from our amazing old black walnut tree. I am very grateful as we are all enjoying it. I love to sit and listen to the wind play our chimes and watch the critters take care of business. Mathew uses it like an amusement park ride. He winds the swing in circles until it is above our heads and rides it all the down. I get nauseous just watching, but he loves it.

One day, Mike and I were sitting on the swing enjoying a lovely fall day when we I noticed a path in the lawn that led from the tree to the edge of our lawn. At first, I thought it was from a deer, but it was too narrow. Then we realized that the squirrels and chipmunks have been running back and forth for weeks collecting walnuts. This year we have a bumper crop. There appears to be enough for everyone and then some.

So what does this mean? Are the critters simply taking advantage of the huge resource of walnuts this year? Or, do they know something about this winter that we don’t? Is it going to be a long harsh one, where we’ll need to hoard our resources so we can survive? I guess we will see. All I know is that the critters are running around like little maniacs collecting walnuts, discarding the hulls everywhere. Some days I come home and there are hulls all over the porch and in the garage. I have never seen so much activity.

Just in case, we decided to make sure the snow blower is in good condition, ordered the firewood, filled the heating oil tank, got the furnace serviced and chimney cleaned. Finally, all the draft dodgers are by their designated doors. Hopefully, we are all set for a long harsh winter but will be pleasantly surprised with something less. What do you do to prepare for the winter?

walnut hulls left by the critters