Masting is a technique that oaks and many other genera use to both outsmart and exploit squirrels and other wildlife that both consumes and disperses their seed. For several years, oaks here produce enough acorns to sustain a population of squirrels that is limited by their production of acorns. It may not seem to be very effective, since the squirrels consume almost all of the acorns, leaving very few or none to grow into new trees. Then, every several years, the same oaks collectively produce a ‘mast’, which is a crop of acorns that is too excessive for the limited population of squirrels to consume as thoroughly as they typically do. Squirrels instinctually bury many of the surplus acorns anyway. Because they do not return to dig and eat all of their buried acorns, some acorns grow as new trees. This is how the oaks sustain those who disperse their seed, but also get them to disperse their seed without eating all of it. Mast crops of acorns supposedly typically precede exceptionally rainy winters. So far, the mast this year is only coinciding with a messy situation with drippy nut disease. It is caused by bacterial infection of wounds that are caused by filbert weevils, filbert worms or other insects that damage developing acorns. Consequently, squirrels are ignoring many of the unusually abundant but damaged acorns, leaving icky messes of infected acorns and the goo that they exude. When it eventually arrives, the first rain will make this mess even messier. Later rain should rinse some of it away. It is impossible to know how successful this mast will be, since it is impossible to know how many viable acorns will actually contribute to the abundance and grow later, and how many will merely contribute to this unusually messy mast.