Q: I have several tall pine trees in my back yard. I’ve been having a large amount of pine tree debris coming down for about a month. A lot of long, skinny tan and green pine cones are falling plus pieces of cones. It is a lot more than most years. Any ideas?

A: The debris is the work of squirrels. Perched high in the tree, they are eating pine seeds from the pine cones and dropping the gnawed cones to the ground. It’s sort of like I do when I eat muscadine grapes: the skin is discarded on the ground while I suck the sweet nectar from the pulp. I know it’s a mess but the rain of pine debris will last only a few more weeks.