Winter Trees

On Saturday I took a class on identifying trees in the winter.  The class was 3 hours long and held at Carlos Avery.  We spent half the time outside identifying trees.  The instructor was a prof from the University of Minnesota.  He said he lived in northeast Minneapolis. I looked at his hiking boots, flannel shirt, north face jacket and long dark beard and thought, "Of course you do.  You probably ride a bicycle too."  I learned quite a bit of information.  Scotch pine, for example, are different than red pine.  I thought they were all red pine.  I knew red oak from white oak but I didn't know white oak has a chemical in it that stops water transmission.  This is why white oak don't suffer as much mortality from oak wilt disease as red oaks.  This is also why we store whiskey and wine in barrels made from white oak.  Barrels made out of red oak would leak.  We had about 30 people in the class and most of them were not Master Naturalists.  Many were younger.  One young woman raised her hand to ask a question and I expected something immature to come out of her mouth.  Instead she asks, "Scientific name please?"  Whoa, girl.  She was a serious tree student. As we stood admiring a white oak tree, the wolves at the nearby Wildlife Science Center slowly start up a group howl.  I remember the first time I heard this.  I was stunned by the sound and had a hard time wrapping my head around the fact I was hearing wolves right here near Ham Lake.   I look around at the faces of the people who are probably here for the first time.  I see the looks on their faces as they try to comprehend the fact they are hearing not one wolf, not two, not ten, not twenty, but fifty wolves.  I nod at the young woman next to me.  I say, "Yes, you are hearing wolves.  There are 50 of them over behind the building."  Her eyes widen and she runs to tell her friend.  Hearing wolves howl is not a sound  I can get used too.  The howl of a wolf opens something primal in me.  I feel the same way about the call of a loon and the hoot of an owl.  The bray of a donkey does it for me too. We had a great morning learning about trees.  Some of the tree facts I knew already and some were new to me.  I'm sure I won't remember it all but hopefully some of what I learned won't leak out right away.