Sunday Morning

 Hi everybody.

How are you?

I just got back from the longest walk I've taken in a while. 3.8 miles around the park in what's left of the snow. It was very quiet. I didn't even hear very many birds. There was a decent sunrise, and deer, and fox tracks in the snow. The pond inside the park is completely frozen, and the one just outside has only a small unfrozen ring in the center. 

Look at all those ducks, and one lonely goose.

Wait...I remember that game from Kindergarten! 

That poor goose was honking and honking, trying to call for his friends, I guess. 

Yesterday in Master Naturalist class, we did dendrology (trees). It was wonderful, and I learned a LOT, but already forgot most of it because it was two college semesters worth of material in a three hour presentation. Luckily, I have good notes.

After the lecture, we went outside to practice winter tree identification, and I tried to practice it again this morning on my walk.

That heart shaped thing on the branch is called a leaf scar, from where the leaf dropped off the tree.

This is a hickory tree, and the holes are from a northern flicker.

I am pretty sure this is an American Beech tree. More research is required.

On the end of this branch is the terminal bud. It's where the leaves are. They're already in there, waiting to come out when the time is right. From the center, the branch will continue to grow, and at the end of it will be next year's leaves in a new terminal bud. 

Or something like that. I should really check my notes.

Anyway, trees are really interesting, and if I could find a way, I would like to take an actual college dendrology class sometime. Why didn't I know that that was a thing back when I was in college?

Next class is ornithology (birds)!!! I can't wait.

I hope you are all doing ok. There is so much that is just terrible, but there are also sunrises and trees and birds and things. Those things help me handle the terrible stuff better. Find your things. Because speed bumps indeed.

Putting a link to a good t-shirt in the links section. 

I have no idea how the formatting is going to look this time. I tried doing it a little differently, but it might still be wonky. I'll keep working on it. 

Onward.