I was on a walk, on the phone talking with my friend Will, discussing the deep bowels of my latest existential affliction when I spotted one of these cheerios on the ground. I paused, picked it up, and told him I'd found where cheerios come from.

he sighed, "... as the cell phone minutes tick away ..."

I sent him a pic of that original cheerio and he exuded his Will prose that you just read, explaining the history of California oaks.

I was halfway through his explanation before I realized this was not a serious history lesson. I was so entertained, I had to go back for more images to publish this.

next day, I visited the same spot, took many photos, some natural, some arranged. I thought these might be acorn-like pieces but the tree they were under didn't look anything like an oak and I didn't know what kind of tree it was. so I took pics of the tree, its bark, leaves, branch structure, and the green walnut sized fruit it was bearing. I didn't even look at the fallen fruit to see if this cheerio piece was a part of it.

as I was walking back, I saw a car fender sitting in a prominent place in someone's garden. well, I had to take a picture of that.

and then I noticed I was stepping on hundreds of these cheerios, many more than the original site. I took a bunch of pictures. then I looked up. this tree definitely looked like an oak.

I marched back to the original site and noticed the tree I thought was dropping these cheerios was engulfed by a larger oak tree.

and - I've lived in this area for a couple decades now and have never noticed these cheerio acorns before. what else am I not noticing...