Nuts To You!

Day 321: "Well, nuts to you!" sez I to the chipmunk who's been scrounging under the bird feeders lately. No, I'm not really expecting a crop of filberts from Harry Lauder's Walking-stick, although the tree is producing some. My experience with our native Beaked Hazelnut and the small grove of filberts we had when I was a kid leads me to think that the few the worms don't get into will be consumed by birds, squirrels and chipmunks long before they ripen. I planted Harry Lauder shortly after I moved here, meaning that the tree is roughly 30 years old now. Only once in the past have I seen evidence of nuts, and that was in the form of a few shells on the ground. I don't recall having ever seen one on the tree before. It will be interesting to see how these progress.