Crackin' up

Sometimes I find myself doing something that the girls have asked me to do and I agree(usually it's before that first cup of coffee kicks in) and then I ask myself,

"Why am I doing this?"

Like this morning at 7:00 am I found myself trying to crack open an acorn for Kenzie's webkinz chipmunk because he was hungry...He's getting ready to hibernate you know.

Those suckers are kinda slippery and it took me several attempts to do it. Now I was using a nutcracker that I stole, I mean borrowed, from my parents house and it is quite possibly older than I am. Not sure if it might have been easier with a modern day nutcracker.(kidding mom) Actually maybe it's for cracking open lobsters..does it make a difference??

Anyway as I finally cracked open the acorn and realized how meaty they are inside I got to wondering why people don't eat acorns.

No, I didn't try it but it prompted me to want to find out why. So I looked in my handy, dandy

Encyclopedia of Country Living to see if it had acorns in it and I learned a few things that I shared with the girls.

Acorns are bitter due to the fact that they contain tannin. Tannin is used in tanning hides into leather. Some varieties of acorns contain more tannin than others and you can leach the tannin out to make the acorns taste better. Basically it's a lot of work for a little return.

Also pigs and chickens enjoy eating acorns too.

So there's everything you never wanted to know about acorns.

And you may be snickering at that fact that I own a book called The Encyclopedia of Country Living but this is seriously one of my favorite books and it is full of information about living a more self sufficient life and well, with the state of the economy right now, who doesn't want to be a little more self sufficient?

In case you were wondering Chubby the chipmunk was very thankful for his acorn breakfast.