We collected these acorns last year. I saved them cause it was kind of a lot of work, and they are pretty great to play with. We hadn’t played with them though since last year, and I decided to get them out so we could use the container for cat food (cause we have a cat now!). She’s still learning to like us, but we’re getting there. You’ll start seeing her around I’m sure. Well, the container had been chewed through by rodents (which is one of the reasons we wanted a cat). Anyways, I dumped the acorns into the swimming pool, where they can be played with until they are literally squirreled away for winter. The girls were screaming with delight as they played with the acorns and quickly gathered every container they could find on the deck to fill with them. Then of course they had to dump them, which led to them dumping them out. Many of the acorns rolled their way off the deck, probably irritating James who was leaf blowing below us. They decided to get dolls, so they could go swimming in the acorns, and then they had fun burying the dolls. Then the dolls were thrown in the pool. Winnie wanted to be buried next, and then they had fun dropping down acorns on one another.
Roland napped contentedly through it all. I forgot to take a picture, so I snuck up during nap time the next day to take a picture. Close enough. Plus, check out those thighs.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kdenke/37446248260/in/datetaken/
All Mountains and Molehills 
better than playing with sand!!!
we don’t have a cat but have voles, but there are a a few wild cats coming usually to our garden, even a cat from our neighbors! so i can say that the vole population’s quite under control.