Nutty About Acorns
Nutty About Acorns
Carpenter Nature Center has six different varieties of Oak trees dispersed throughout the 425 acre Minnesota campus. Did you know that the acorns oak trees produce are edible? One species, the White Oak, is a common tree you will see here. Its acorns are the most palatable of the six varieties at CNC and are often abundant in the fall. To identify a White Oak acorn from a different species, the biggest thing to remember is size and shape. The White Oak produces acorns that are egg shaped with cups that cover only a small fraction of the nut itself. The Red Oak, by contrast, produces a stubbier acorn and a cap that covers almost half of the nut. They look like the smooshed version of the White Oak.
Oak trees take a long time to reach reproductive maturity; up to 20 years! Once they are old enough, a single tree can produce up to 10,000 acorns in a mast year. A mast year is when the oak tree overproduces nuts so that it can grow bigger the next year without nuts. That means that an oak tree won’t always produce nuts every season. Sometimes it has to rest and conserve its energy for growth.
These somewhat annoying trees that drop acorns on your car and hurt your feet when you walk barefoot are actually an ancient hidden food source. Acorns have been eaten for thousands of years, much longer than people have been eating wheat. All over the world, people have been using the acorn to make bread, noodles, chips, and much more. During times of hardship such as war or famine, acorns were used as a supplement food source to keep families alive when there wasn’t enough wheat or grain to go around. Today, the acorn is making a comeback in American households. The acorn is packed with protein, good fats, and vitamins that keep our bodies strong. Do you have a lot of acorns around where you live? Here is a fast and easy recipe for you and your family to try that will leave you full and more knowledgeable about the hidden foods around you!
Candied Acorns
Credit: Wayne Askew
Ingredients:
- Acorns
- Butter
- Brown sugar
Directions:
- Harvest acorns in the fall and put in water to remove any floaters.
- Remove shell and quarter acorn meat.
- Boil acorns for 5 min. to remove tannins (bitter taste).
- Sauté in skillet with butter.
- Add brown sugar to taste and coat acorn slivers.
- Cook until brown sugar and butter start to thicken around acorn pieces.
- Cool and eat as dessert or snack.
Want to know how to make acorn flour as a gluten free alternative when cooking? Follow this link for the best information on how to process your acorns into flour for any paleo/ gluten free recipe you may want to try. Acorn Flour Recipe
-Hannah Haselden, Environmental Education Intern
Picture: https://basalrosette.wordpress.com/2011/01/18/oakly/
March Maple Madness
For many, the transition from winter to spring marks the beginning of maple
syrup season. Maple syrup can be made by collecting and boiling down the sap from maple trees. The Native Americans discovered this process hundreds of years ago, likely by accident. Legend tells of a chief, who after removing his tomahawk from a maple tree, set out for a day of deer hunting. When his wife needed to collect water for the evening’s venison stew, she found a birch-bark bucket full of “water” under the maple tree. She cooked the venison from the day’s hunt with the “water”, and produced the sweetest stew the chief had ever tasted. His wife had unknowingly used maple sap, which is as clear as water, and boiled it down into sweet syrup. This was the beginning of maple syrup.
When Europeans arrived in North America, they learned from the natives about maple sap and syruping. The settlers set up sugar camps in the woods where the maple trees were most plentiful, and the trees were slashed with an ax to allow the sap to drip out and be collected. They eventually experimented with collection methods, drilling holes and using wooden spiles (spouts) and buckets. In the late 1800’s children were given a holiday from school to celebrate the sap run and to allow kids to help with the laborious process.
The tradition of March maple syrup season is still alive. Collection and processing methods have evolved, although the fundamentals prevail. Sap starts flowing in maple trees when nights are below freezing and days are above freezing temperatures (ideally around 40° F). All Maples, including Boxelders, will make fine syrup. The difference lies in the sugar content of the sap. Sugar Maples have a much higher concentration of sugar in the sap, while box elders have the lowest sugar content. It takes roughly 86 gallons of sap to make one gallon of syrup from Boxelder sap!
Maple syruping is a fun process that is not difficult and can be very rewarding. With a little research, patience, and planning you could have jars of syrup on your shelves for a fraction of the price you would pay at the store. This month, CNC has a wide variety of maple syrup programs open to the public. We invite you to join us in this fun, educational experience as we celebrate our heritage and the bounty of the natural world. Be sure to also check out the links below if you are interested in starting Maple syruping on your own.
Additional Resources:
Backyard Maple Syruping Handout
Minnesota Maple Series: Identifying Maples Trees for Syrup Production
A Lesson that Comes Naturally
On certain Saturdays, my wife works an overnight shift. That means the girls and I strike out on our own to give Mom a quiet house during the day. These Saturdays turn into mini adventures for me and my two inquisitive, precocious little girls; Evelyn (7) and Audrey (4).
Our adventures require full on parenting — navigating the emotional rollercoaster of playground dynamics, negotiating how much ice cream they can earn by helping Dad, and debating the exact minutes of screen time allotted. But they are also precious days spent in father-daughter bonding.
So, when Jennifer Vieth, Executive Director of the Carpenter Nature Center, invited me to their raptor release, I was all in. After all, I thought causally, it sounded like a great way to kill some time. 
As we ascended St. Croix Trail, I knew immediately that this was a special place. We drove only a little over 30 minutes from our familiar sidewalks and storefronts in South Minneapolis. Once atop the river valley we found an elegant vista, where lush green fields roll down to the St. Croix River’s shoreline and soaring oaks and maples stretch over the tidy, stone buildings.
The aesthetics of Carpenter Nature Center welcome visitors immediately and, along with incredibly friendly staff and volunteers, invite them to learn and explore. The interpretive center heldmyriad natural treasures; animals, birds and reptiles that we could meet and even adopt in our bid to be closer to nature. Then, of course,there was the main event.
The raptor release (in partnership with the University of Minnesota Raptor Center) was truly inspiring. A couple hundred people descended on a gentle slope to encourage these majestic birds as they spread their wings and leapt into the sky for the first time since suffering injuries. My girls saw them up close, watched them fly, heard their wings beat the air and saw them perch in a treetop for one last grateful look at their rescuers.
Evelyn, long obsessed with owls, bubbled over with questions and scarcely took her eyes off the numerous birds-turned-teachers. It was an emotional encounter; not only because these beautiful birds returned home but also because so many people showed up to say they cared. About the birds, the environment and our natural community.Carpenter Nature Center lefts its mark with me, as I’m sure it does all of its visitors.
My daughters experienced nature that day. Not just saw it but felt it, smelled it and heard it. No screens, no squabbling over which shoes to wear, no “what can I do now?” The transformational energy that only a natural space can bring to bear surrounded them.
Weeks later, they still talk about their adventure. Their world is small but their minds are great and, with open hearts, they discovered something special simply by being there. It opened a window to a new world — not a bad way to “kill some time” on a Saturday.
Where are the Monarchs?
This summer has been a very quiet year for monarch observations in Minnesota and Wisconsin. The reasons for this drop in Monarch numbers are two-fold. Last winter the number of Monarchs over-wintering in Mexico was 80 percent below average due to the high heat and drought last summer. The late and cold spring this year also delayed the Monarch’s northward movements, meaning that fewer Monarchs will complete the season’s fourth breeding cycle. What does that mean for the future of Monarchs? These amazing insects have high breeding potential and a widespread range so their population may recover. However, multiple years with low breeding success could signal a big problem for these amazing migrants. To read more about Monarch migration and population studies please visit Journey North .