Thunk, and Other Fun Words

The walnuts have begun falling now, a bit early in the season but our black walnut tree is old and so it drops its fruit and leaves before the other trees. They're huge round green things that don't look at all like the lovely walnuts one buys in the store, but the squirrels know what's past the thick rind and carry them all over the yard, gnawing through the pulpy exterior and the hard shell to reach the meat of the nut. Their job is sometimes made easier when the walnuts land on our porch, startling the cats, or when they smack the roof outside my bedroom window on the way down (disturbing my dreams). Some squirrels even take a walnut up the telephone poles with them, sit on the wires that are strung over the roads, and drop their burden in hopes that a car will run over it. It seems so very smart, but then they have to sit in the road if they want to eat their prize.