Squirrels aren’t the only ones collecting acorns this year, the environmental club set out to fill bags with nuts recently.

“We went out to collect acorns and walnuts for the Department of Forestry,” mentioned Trent Ray, senior. ‘They plan on doing a seed-starting project. To be honest, I don’t know the exact reasons for the project, (but) from what I understand (it has) to do with local trees being needed in the area to replace from wildfires and things…stuff that will grow quickly and easy in the area.”

Ray was on the walnut-collecting committee alongside Alex Reed, senior, and this group had more nuts than they knew what to even do with.

“They’re a good species because they tend to outcompete a lot of others so they can reduce invasives,” Reed said. “It was really easy; they were everywhere. We could’ve collected for another two hours and probably gotten a truck load.”

The second group of foragers had a little bit more of an expedition on their hands, not only having to hike through the woods to find their quarry, but they also had to be a matchmaker from seed to tree.

“We went behind Dyer (Hall) on the trails looking for acorns. When we find an acorn we would look at the acorn, look up at the three then put the acorn in the right bag,” remarked Richard Marshall, sophomore. “That’s what we did for basically an hour–walked up the trails and picked up acorns.”

Even with the added level of acorn paternity puzzles, the group enjoyed a day out in the woods rummaging through roots and searching for fallen seeds.

“I enjoyed this very much. I went out on the trails, and its a very beautiful day,” said Perry Roller, junior. “I collected nuts, and yea, that’s all.”