Mighty Oaks From Annoying Little Acorns Grow

Wednesday was not a day to be a balding man with a comb-over in Washington. It was not a day to be a woman with a poorly affixed wig. It was not a day to pull the driver out of a golf bag.

It was a windy day.

It was a day when bike messengers fought to stay upright, when small, fluffy dogs worried about becoming airborne, when minivans, caught by blustery gusts, yawed across their lanes like caravels skipping over the waves.

It was a day when you wished you had a kite, until you realized that this wind was not the sort of nicely sustained breeze that would make flying a kite a calming experience, but the sort of violent, unpredictable wind that would wrench your kite first one way and then another, then stop abruptly, leaving your kite suspended for an agonizing split-second -- the string gone slack -- then roar back with such a vengeance that it would reduce your toy to splinters.

It was a day when acorns fell like hailstones.

This is an especially acorn-y autumn anyway, what experts call a "mast year," as in, "Dang, a big mast o' acorns just fell on my head." Different types of oaks move to their own rhythms, producing a bumper crop of acorns every few years.

"Some of these tree species have had to evolve with mammals and insects that eat a lot of their seeds," said the National Arboretum's Scott Aker. "The strategy is, if you produce a very meager crop most of the time, then after however many years you produce a huge crop of seeds, that really increases the chance you'll have progeny growing from that crop of seeds."

A lot of oaks in the Washington area are overdoing it with the acorns.

"I was driving down one of the roads here this morning," Scott said. "Acorns are round, and when you drive over them, they kind of pop. I got the effect of driving over bubble wrap this morning."

These days, sitting in my home office -- an enclosed porch -- is like being under an artillery assault: Bam! Bam bam bam! The acorns are falling fast and furious. Scott assured me this is not dangerous. Unlike hailstones and meteors, acorns fall from a modest height. It is unlikely your car will be dented or you will be knocked out by oak spawn.

"There's more threat from acorns if you're in a situation on a walkway or a deck and, because they're round, you start to slip on them," he said.

I started to giggle. Then Scott started to giggle.