Show Me Your Nuts

While waiting for the day-ending bell to ring in my children's school yard the relative of one of my daughter's friends showed us a toy pail full of chestnuts.  Quite a few of Vancouver's residential streets are lined with chestnut trees.  At this time of year they drop both their leaves and their seed onto the sidewalks, lawns, streets and cars that happen to be below their majestic branches.

Walking I notice a few things.  My path is littered with chestnuts.  Some have cracked open on their fall to the road or sidewalk - husk separated from nut.  The husks look like some strange parasite.  Spiny and full of needles.  Green, brown, yellow.  The nuts are a beautiful, deep, reddish brown, the look of a grand mahogany.  Smooth and shiny.  I kick the nuts as I walk, ad hoc soccer balls.  I crush the husks under my feet with almost every step.

Looking up I notice how busy the squirrels are these days.  Hoping from branch to branch.  Scurrying up the trunks, ahead of a pedestrian's passage.  Freezing on the side of the trunk, four legs spread wide, nails gripping the bark, chestnut in mouth, large dark eyes looking around and observing the pedestrian as he approaches and passes.  This is a critical time of year for them, of course.  "Back away human!"

Nature runs its course, along the tree-lined streets of Vancouver.  Clunk!  A nut falls on a BMW X5.

Let me know what you think about what you have just read. Please and thanks!