Acorns are in abundance this year. Just walking along our trail I stopped and started counting the acorns within reach. I stopped at 100. SO many!

They come in so many sizes, colors and styles. Hubby brought me these home from his lunch time walk. I had to see this tree for myself. We went and collected a bag of them. Close by was another tree with a frilly cap. 

These are bur oak acorns and can be up to two inches log.

Surprisingly the tree wasn’t that big.

I decided to make a wreath with these wonderful acorns. I just used things I had on hand. 

Wrapping a 12″ foam wreath with burlap I had from Thanksgiving.

I made a few burlap roses by wrapping, shaping and hot gluing them.

I used a drawer pull I had bought at Hobby Lobby at half off. The leaves and berries I had in my stash too. The rusty wire with pearl garland I bought last Christmas.

Easy project as long as you don’t burn your finger. 

I ended up making three!

BUT back to the acorns.

Several folks have talked about a large acorn harvest means a hard winter.

Is this true? I don’t know. I started reading about it and the Farmers Almanac gives us 20 signs of a hard winter. Acorns being one of them.

Here are the 20 Signs of A Hard Winter.

Thicker than normal corn husks
Woodpeckers sharing a tree
Early arrival of the Snowy owl
Early departure of geese and ducks
Early migration of the Monarch butterfly
Thick hair on the nape (back) of the cow’s neck
Heavy and numerous fogs during August
Raccoons with thick tails and bright bands
Mice eating ravenously into the home
Early arrival of crickets on the hearth
Spiders spinning larger than usual webs and entering the house in great numbers
Pigs gathering sticks
Insects marching a bee line rather than meandering
Early seclusion of bees within the hive
Unusual abundance of acorns
Muskrats burrowing holes high on the river bank
“See how high the hornet’s nest, ‘twill tell how high the snow will rest”
Narrow orange band in the middle of the Woollybear caterpillar warns of heavy snow; fat and fuzzy caterpillars presage bitter cold
The squirrel gathers nuts early to fortify against a hard winter
Frequent halos or rings around sun or moon forecast numerous snow falls.

Ok, I haven’t seen my pigs gathering much and I’ve never seen a snowy owl. But it’s an interesting list.

Along those same lines, Lori from Vintage Viola recently had a post on Instagram about how persimmon seeds can tell you what type winter to expect. I found this very interesting so I went and collected from three of our trees (all the while Jack ate and ate them. I finally had to drag him away. Now, he will go to these trees for the next 4 months hoping to compliment his diet) So I cut the seeds in half and look at the inside and all of them had spoons, which means snowy winter.

Spoons means snowy, forks a mild winter and knives mean bitter winter. So I’m good with spoons. Lori lives in Oklahoma and she got spoons too. I have never heard of these before. Have you?

We shall see what comes from all this.

Katey