New England Fall (lots o' pics)

Beautiful, Phil. A breath of fresh air (except for the fire area, of course). I hope the fire is contained and you can continue to enjoy the progressing season. My regards to the camerawoman.

I passed on your regards to ML.
The fire service expects the fire will smolder until heavy snow fall extinguishes it. Deep rocky crevasses with decades of leaves and forest litter accumulation are hard to put out. But it is no longer a threat per the fire service.

Beautiful, Phil.  Next, though, comes the ten tons of snow.  You can have it.

I just knew you were going to say that.
But you can't fool me. You go to Buffalo in winter so you must really hate it.

Ah, but when I do go (though not this year) someone else does the driving and that's just fine with me.

Nice color.

I wanted to get out to take pix, but it never happened. Not a big loss though since the colors just weren't as good as other years.  Our color peaked maybe 2 weeks ago and the trees are mostly bare now. After tomorrow all the trees will be bare* as we're going to get lots of wind and rain.

* Some trees hold onto their leaves through the winter. Beech is one of those.

Back in the mid-Atlantic states the pin oak does the same thing. Hangs onto the leaves until new growth pushes them out.
Popular landscape/shade tree for swim clubs and folks with pools or ponds.

You seem to know much about leaves. That impressed me.

Phil, do you know of any white oaks? I'd love to have some acorns from them. All we have locally are red oaks and the acorns aren't fit for consumption.

The acorns I'm asking for aren't for food, but for planting. It won't be in my lifetime that I'll see anything from them but for future generations that I'd be planting for.

[quote='ShadowsDad' pid='173001' dateline='1509661640']
Phil, do you know of any white oaks?

Brian,
Near as I can tell all of our oaks are red. This year's acorn crop is minimal to nonexistent. Which is okay with me.

I read a paper on acorn production once. People say that trees produce acorns every 2 or 3 years depending on species. This paper explained that it is more random. If a tree produced a set crop each year the surrounding population of acorn eating animals would multiple so that acorn consumption would equal acorn production. That would leave no acorns to germinate and become mighty oaks.

Oaks evolved to randomly produce acorns both in timing and abundance. This foils the acorn eating animals and gives the acorns a chance to grow. So the "bumper crop" of acorns is not a prediction of winter but simply an oak trees attempt to foil the chipmunks.
Fascinating.


Back in PA where I grew up the oaks were white. The deer seem to prefer them. Though deer will obviously eat red oak acorns as well.

When you mention food production are you thinking of deer or for human consumption?

Phil

Both for human and animals. White oak acorns are delicious. Just roast them for a time before eating. Red oak acorns are bitter from tannin. It can be leached out, but it's just not worth the bother.

I wish the barrel makers had thought ahead a little. That's why there are so few white oaks in NE today.

A co-worker brought in a handful of acorns once for me to try. I assumed they were white oak but I don't know that for sure. I muked them for a short time and they were absolutely delicious. I asked what type of oak they came from but he didn't know. It was his tree.