so my building has a little garden around it. in this garden is a stone pine tree. every now and then pinecones drop from this tree which is great! i throw them around for my dog to play with and he has a grand time!! (he never tried swallowing any part of the pinecone he just likes to chew on them)

but after a day, without fail, whatever pinecones we've been playing with disappear and it's been going on for YEARS and i have no explanation 【・ヘ・?】

• i feel like it's not birds taking them and flying off because these pinecones are decently big? maybe a crow could lift one but it seems unlikely. there's also no pine nuts inside them (trust me i check lmao love me some free pine nuts) so it seems unlikely birds would look for them
• second idea was maybe it's the upstairs' neighbour's dog destroying them. biagio likes pinecones but the times i've seen him playing with pinecones he wasn't obsessed with them - not to mention if he was just playing with them roughly and tearing the parts off i would still find at least part of the pinecone!
• last idea was that maybe someone's taking them. there is a family with young children a few floors above me and i mean, i was the kind of kid who picked up rocks and sticks and took them home so it's not out of the question a child would do that. but i've never even seen these kids playing in the garden, which makes sense because this is a small and kinda lame garden and there's a whole ass playground across the street
• it can't be the gardener because he only comes by once every few months

put your detective hats on guys and please help me solve the mystery of the vanishing pinecones because i'm out of ideas (￣ω￣;)

also while you're here look at how cute my son is while enjoying his pinecone (｡･ω･｡)ﾉ♡