Where are all the Acorns?

Following creative breadcrumbs through the woods

This time of year seems to open up to me as the time to get outside and appreciate some nature.  Partly because I’m made for the shade so Summer is not the one for me and partly because I finish my seasonal job and find myself with a lot more time that I have to manage myself - not one of my finer skills. This leads to 2 hour dog walks, lost in the woods and photographing leaves and mushrooms when I “should” be working on my ceramics business.  Now it is just me & old boy Brom on these walks (and he has been injured and wobbly on his legs) so we take our time.  We play a constant tug of war, him taking forever to do the good sniffs and me taking forever to look at something I spotted on a bit of dead wood.

Although it feels like major procrastination mode, I have decided it is actually just following the breadcrumbs of inspiration through the woods (here’s hoping that there’s no gingerbread house to tempt me because I can never say no to a sweet treat).

I recently listened (again) to Elizabeth Gilbert - Big Magic and it reminded me to follow my interest when creativity isn’t flowing freely.  To follow anything that lights a little spark inside.

It all started with reading a section of Nature’s Calendar book about wasp galls on oak trees and how a particular wasp has to use two different oaks for two different generations of larvae - fascinating.   Then off for our walk we go and it is time to start searching for Acorn hats to add onto some tiny ceramic acorns I like to make for Christmas Markets.  There’s a section of our woodland walk that opens up into a meadow and one area has a bunch of oak trees that I have watched over the past decade grow from saplings into pretty impressive trees.  Approximately 15 of them in one small area, a great place to start looking.  First tree - no acorns at all. Lots of galls though, the book had planted an acorn in my mind and it had started to grow….

Top left: knopper gall. Top right: a lovely pair of green acorns, Bottom Left: artichoke gall and silk button spangle galls (on the leaves), Bottom Right: a marble gall.

My breadcrumb trail following usually looks like this - find an interesting thing, take a photograph, wiki search for some nature facts, remember around 30% of the detail and finally see whatever the thing is EVERYWHERE and wonder how I’ve travelled through 40 years without noticing before.

So I carry on… all of these trees are very slim on acorns.  My Wikipedia search tells me that Oak trees have “mast years” where they will produce absolutely loads of acorns about every 3-5 years and then a lot less on other years.  This is the clever oak creating so many on one year that its predators can’t eat as many as they produce meaning that some of those little acorns might actually become trees instead of squirrel food. I continue my walk and find a few juicy ones to pocket - I only like to take the tops these days as this seems like a low impact way to use something from nature in my creations.

Some mushroom friends I found in Mere Sands Wood whilst blending into my surroundings.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and I go woodland walking on a massive mushroom hunt with my nature nerd pal Nic.  We went to Mere Sands Wood (my first time) which was great for mushrooming.  In amongst all the mushroom frolicking I noticed some very strange looking chaps - never seen anything like it.  Very long acorns with the most fabulous shaggy hats.  Google searching has led me to about 3 different types of acorn/oak tree and I haven’t been able to identify them…. Is it a turkey oak? Is it a Bur oak? Anyone who knows better than me please let me know so that I can quickly forget…

Unidentified acorn “hats”…. do you know them?

Now I’m trying to take this oak and acorn spark and transfer it to my creations.  I’ve got a whole new selection of little charm necklaces that I’ll be taking with me to The Incredible Makers market in Kettering (2nd Nov) and some other markets in December. I made a little acorn push mould to reduce the sculpting time a little and I am so pleased with the results.

From a ball of clay to the finished pendant.

Following this small spark has taken me back to the process and I am starting to feel a little more like myself and able to let the clay take me for a ramble, following those breadcrumbs of course.

I’m looking forward to seeing where it leads me…

Sending Sunshine

Jess x