If you live near a walnut tree, there’s no escaping hearing the hard plunking sound of falling nuts this time of year. There’s also no avoiding the dark stains on the streets coming from walnuts unwittingly smashed by vehicles.

On October hikes, I must be careful not to step on the sticky, green-husked nuts strewn along sidewalks. But I also have fun watching squirrels sitting in trees chomping on the shells or burying walnuts in the soil.

Trees, including walnuts and oaks, drop nuts every year. In some years, called mast years, they produce much more. Scientists still wonder: Do the trees know if they produce many more nuts in one year, the hungry critters like squirrels will get so satiated that some of the nuts will remain to sprout and create a new tree? Is it the tree’s way of ensur

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