Happy Solstice!

As I type this, it is only minutes before the winter solstice, which in our location will occur at 11:49 PM. A great website for tracking the length of daylight is http://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa. It includes lots of interesting facts regarding the sun, moon, the seasons and more. So, Happy Winter! However, if one steps outside here in New England, you could easily mistake this day for the Spring Equinox instead, as it's drizzly and 44 degrees Fahrenheit. I think I can confidently say that we will not be having a white Christmas.

I am happy that I can now look forward to incremental changes in the length of daylight. Still the short days of the next couple months will provide an opportunity to participate in some workshops and to do some research for this blog and next year's garden. The week before last I participated in a day-long Winter Botany Workshop, held at the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire's Forests Conservation Center in Concord. 

The workshop was sponsored by the New Hampshire Association of Natural Resource Scientists and was taught by Dr. William E. Kuriger. The morning and late afternoon sessions were held indoors and involved learning how to identify trees and shrubs by examining their twigs and fruit. In the winter, when clues such as leaves and seeds are limited, it is still possible to identify a specific species by dissecting a branch and looking in detail at the buds and leaf scars.

After lunch we walked outside to try and identify the trees growing around the Center. I learned that it is not it is not an easy task and that, sometimes, even the experts disagree. 

At a quick glance, these tree trunks all look alike, but upon closer examination, you can see differences in the structure of the bark. Also, by examining the leaves on the ground, you  realize that they are different species. They are both oak trees, but the white oak has lighter bark and rounded lobes on its leaves and the red oak has more reddish bark and leaves with pointed lobes. Based upon this, I would say that the picture on the left is a white oak and the picture on the right is a red oak. After some discussion, the tree below was identified as a Scarlet Oak.

Although I will never be an expert, I now know how to use William Harlow's Fruit Key and Twig Key and will probably do some practice with it this winter.

My next class this winter is going to be a permaculture course in January. I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge on these principles and will report back later on the blog. In the meantime Happy Holidays to all!