Crack! Rumble, rumble, rumble. Crack! The sound of hard objects pelting my metal roof shot through my open bedroom window, rousing me from the last wisps of sleep. Then silence. I braced myself as a soft hush of wind drew closer. Crack! The wind triggered a new spatter of noises. The house was under attack—by acorns.

Two large red oak trees reach the edges of their canopies out over the roof of my house. Each fall, they create a racket as acorns drop on the metal roof, tumble down the steep slope, and launch out over the driveway. Some years are worse than others, since oaks are mast trees who will produce a bumper crop in one year, then spend subsequent years rebuilding their stores of nutrients and not producing as many acorns. This is clearly a mast year.

Shades of Rot and Life
(This essay is a chapter from Emily’s third book, Natural Connections3: A Web Endlessly Woven, which will arrive in November 2025!)
In the dim light, under the thick, hardwood canopy of the forest, death was everywhere.
Of course, life was everywhere too.

We’d only been watching for a few minutes when suddenly one of the loons took off running and flapping down the bay toward the main lake. Huge, webbed feet splashed at the surface. As soon as the first loon rose above the water, the remaining loon followed in a flurry of flapping wings and feet. What had just happened? The group looked around at each other in amazement, feeling lucky to have witnessed this fascinating bit of loon behavior.