An emailer:

subject: acorns
john, HA! here in missouri, we’ve had an unbelievable bumper crop of nuts.
acorns, hickory nuts, walnuts, you name it. six-inch piles of nut remains cover the ground under the trees.
thinking i had a good “teachable moment” (i.e. teach them not to be suckers and work for nothing), my wife and i told the kids that we’d give them 10 cents for each acorn they retrieved from the bottom of the pool. well, we were the ones who got the economics lesson when they collected over 400!!
lots of nuts and lots of fat squirrels this year.
yep, it’s probably global warming…

Another:

Regarding your acorn entry on The Corner, here in Columbia, SC we have loads of acorns and can send you some. The big oak that shades our deck is fattening up what seems like thousands of squirrels for our Bull Mastiff. I have to wear a hat when out there because the durn things hurt like the dickens when they strike my unprotected pate.
SC is warmer than NoVA but we’ve probably had a bit more rain in recovering from the drought. I don’t blame global warming, I blame Bush, and it’s about the last time we can do so, no?