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Fall does not officially arrive until 2:20 p.m. on Sept. 22, but things are literally falling out of trees around San Antonio, including a bumper crop of live oak acorns.
Patios, sidewalks, driveways, and parked vehicles under the trees may be covered with the tiny green nuts now and well into fall and winter.
David Rodriguez, a horticulture expert with the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service in Bexar County, said the carpet bombing of acorns can be blamed on a drought now in its sixth year in San Antonio.
The baby acorns are dropped en masse to increase the chances of survival for the entire species of trees if the mother live oak were to die.
"It's more of survival mode that ... I need to get you guys out there just in case," Rodriguez said.
He added all those dropped nuts are a source of food for critters that might otherwise have a hard time finding anything green to eat in a drought.
"If you drive over them in the driveway, the white wing doves and the birds are happy, and the squirrels," he said.
He said the squirrels are happy because they often forget where they bury their own acorns. At least one study shows that squirrels fail to retrieve 74% of the nuts they buried.
No wonder they are always scurrying around yards looking puzzled.
