• The Wilton NH Main Street Association will hold its Winter Fest on Saturday, Feb. 14, with ice carving in Main Street Park from 1 to 4 p.m.; a campfire with s’mores and hot cocoa from noon to 4:30 p.m.; a winter market at Wilton Town Hall, and a chili cookoff potluck from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Wilton Community Center, all according to a post on the Association’s Facebook page.
• The Squam Lakes Association Winterfest will take place Saturday, Feb. 14, from noon to 3 p.m. at 534 Route 3 in Holderness, according to squamlakes.org. The day will include a chili cookoff, winter mini golf, sledding, ice skating, a campfire with hot cocoa and s’mores, a Squam Lakes Natural Science Center Discovery Table and more, according to the website.
• And speaking of the Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, 23 Science Center Road in Holderness, this weekend’s Wild Winter Walk takes place Sunday, Feb. 15, with 90-minute sessions at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m.The walks are geared to ages 6 and up; see nhnature.org to register.
Valentine fun
• Bookery, 844 Elm St. in Manchester, will hold a Valentine’s Day themed storytime and craft for the book The Day It Rained Hearts by Felicia Bond on Saturday, Feb. 14, at 11:30 a.m. Reserve a spot at bookerymht.com.
• Valentine’s Day — Saturday, Feb. 14 — is also Second Saturday at the Currier Museum of Art, 150 Ash St. in Manchester, when admission is free for New Hampshire residents. This Saturday, the Creative Studio artmaking activity will feature heart collages and runs from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., according to the Currier’s In Focus newsletter. The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. See currier.org.
On the court
• It’s another weekend of SNHU Penmen basketball with the women’s team playing Adelphi University at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 14, at Stan Spiro Field House at Southern New Hampshire University in Manchester. The men’s team will take on Adelphi at 3:30 p.m. Both teams will take on Franklin Pierce University in games on Wednesday, Feb. 18 — women at 5:30 p.m. and men at 7:30 p.m. See snhupenmen.com.
The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, 6 Washington St. in Dover, childrens-museum.org, will hold a Valentine’s Dance party featuring special musical guest Mr. Aaron on Sunday, Feb. 8, from 1 to 3 p.m. Mr. Aaron will perform between 2 and 2:30 p.m.; the day will also feature Valentine’s crafts, the website said. See the website for tickets, which cost $18 per person.
The Educational Farm at Joppa Hill, 174 Joppa Hill Road in Bedford, will hold a Valentine’s Day Birdseed Hanger craftmaking event on Thursday, Feb. 12, from 11 a.m. to noon, according to jhef.org/events-at-the-farm, where you can reserve a spot for $15 per child. The event will feature a story about animals in winter, a walk on the story patch, a visit to farm birds and making the birdseed hanger, the website said.
Stellar!
The Friday, Feb. 6, Super Stellar Friday program at the McAuliffe-Shepard Discover Center in Concord is all about “Stellar Spectroscopy & Exoplanet Observation,” according to starhop.com. “Join us in the planetarium theater as we take a guided tour through how we use telescopes like the James Webb to learn more about stars too far to visit or take detailed pictures. Learn about the traces left in starlight and what they mean for a star’s formation and potential for habitable worlds, as well as the importance of events in our universe leading up to our own lives on Earth,” the website said. Doors open for the Friday night programming at 6:30 p.m., the presentation starts at 7 p.m. and a sky viewing with New Hampshire Astronomical Society begins at 9 p.m., weather permitting, the website said. A planetarium show, for an additional $7 per person, takes place at 8 p.m. See the website for tickets to the event.
Pink Day
Southern New Hampshire University’s women’s basketball team will celebrate Penmen Pink Day — “Fill the gym with love for breast cancer fighters and survivors” according to a post on the NH Hoop Skills Facebook page — on Saturday, Feb. 7, with a vendor fair starting at 12:30 p.m. before the game against Southern Connecticut State University at 1:30 p.m., according to snhupenmen.com. The men’s game, also against Southern Connecticut, will start at 3:30 p.m., the website said. The games take place at the Stan Spiro Field House on the SNHU campus in north Manchester.
If you like to hike or snowshoe in the winter, you might like to learn the names of the trees you see. Do so and the trees will seem like your friends. No need to greet them as Sally and Bob; know them as sugar maple, ash or white pine. Let’s start with a few evergreen trees.
White pine (Pinus strobus) has clusters of five soft needles, each about 3 inches long. Branches grow in whorls off the trunk; each year the tree grows just one new set of branches, so you can see how fast they grow by observing the distance between whorls on the main trunk. From a distance you can see clumps of needles pointing up near the top of the tree.
Canadian hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) has short, flat needles that feel soft to the touch and that have a white line on the underneath side of each. It is one of the few trees in the woods that can grow in deep shade as well as full sun.
There are several kinds of spruce (Picea spp.), but all share this characteristic, which will separate them from hemlock trees: Turn over a branch and observe the color of the leaves. If the needles on the top side and the bottom of the bough are the same color, it is a spruce. And spruce needles are pointy and sharp.
Recognizing bark is a great way to identify trees. Summer or winter, if you know the look of a tree’s bark, you can identify it. It takes practice, of course, and careful observation.
Some bark is very distinctive. Beech (Fagus grandifolia), for example, has a smooth gray bark that you can learn in moments. I love to run my hands over the bark, as if petting an elephant. Young beech, particularly, hold onto their leaves in winter, which is also a good clue. The leaves are oval with sharp points along their edges.
The underside of hemlock needles has a white stripe. Photo by Henry Homeyer.
Most everyone can identify white or paper birch (Betula papyrifera) by its white, peeling bark that is easily removed from a tree by enthusiastic Scouts anxious to start campfires. Gray birch (B. populifolia) is similar to white birch but it does not peel like its cousin and has a dirtier look. Yellow birch (B. alleghaniensis) peels like white birch but is a golden or silvery gray color.
But did you know that young white birch are not white at all? They have a deep reddish black color and are spotted with small white dots or short white lines, lenticels that feel rough if you rub your hand over them. Eventually, after seven or eight years, white birch saplings will start to turn white.
Branching patterns help to identify trees at any time of the year. Most species of trees and shrubs have what is called alternate branching. That means that as your eye follows a branch, the twigs and leaves alternate from one side to the other. A limited number have opposite branching with twigs facing each other across a branch. Of course, just to confuse us, sometimes twigs or leaves have broken off on a tree like a maple that should have opposite branching.
There is a mnemonic for trees that have opposite branching: MAD Cap Horse. Translated, that means Maple, Ash, Dogwood, member of the Caprifoliacea family (honeysuckle, viburnum and elderberry, among others) and Horse chestnut. So if you see opposite branching, you can eliminate lots of possibilities.
Of the opposite branching trees, white ash is an easy tree to identify by bark: It has prominent ridges with deep furrows. It is dark brown or deep gray. The leaf buds are large and pointy, and new growth tends to be thicker than that of most other trees. Unfortunately this wonderful tree will probably disappear from our woodlands due to a foreign invader, the emerald ash borer.
Buds at the end of a branch are another distinctive characteristic of trees in winter. Red maple (Acer rubrum) and sugar maple (A. saccharum) can be distinguished by their buds, for example. Sugar maple terminal buds are sharp and pointy, red maple buds are blunt and reddish in color, especially as we approach spring. Sugar maple buds are grayish or purplish-brown. And the bark of an old sugar maple is distinctive.
Oaks have opposite branching and hold on to their leaves throughout part of the winter. There are two major groups of oaks: the red and white oak families. Both have lobed leaves; red oaks have pointy tips on their lobes, while white oaks have rounded lobes. A good tree book can give you clues to narrowing down which of the oaks you are seeing, though red oak (Quercus rubra) and white oak (Quercus alba) are the most common.
When not in the woods, you might want to be at a spring flower show. The Connecticut Flower Show will be in Hartford, Connecticut, Feb. 20–23. The Philadelphia Flower Show is Feb. 28–March 8. The New Hampshire Orchid Society Flower Show will be March 6–8 in Nashua. The Capital Region Flower Show, is in Troy, N.Y., March 27–29. Lastly, the Chelsea Flower Show, in London, England, will be May 19–23. Plan to attend at least one!
Henry is a lifelong organic gardener living in Cornish, N.H. Write him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. His column appears once a month.
Featured photo: White Ash bark. Photo by Henry Homeyer.
• The Gilbert H. Hood Drama Club will present The Sound of Music youth edition on Friday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 31, at 4 p.m. at Stockbridge Theatre, 44 N. Main St. in Derry, according to stockbridgetheatre.com. Tickets cost $13.
Walk in winter
• Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, 23 Science Center Road in Holderness, nhnature.org, holds Wild Winter Walks on some Saturdays and Sundays through March, according to the website. “Join one of our naturalists for a guided walk along the live animal exhibit trail to see our animal ambassadors sporting their winter coats,” the website said. The walks are geared toward ages 6 and up and attendees are reminded to “dress in warm layers,” the website said. Upcoming dates are Sunday, Feb. 1; Saturday, Feb. 7; Sunday, Feb. 15; Saturday, Feb. 21; Saturday, Feb. 28; Saturday, March 7, and Sunday, March 15, with walks slated for 10 to 11:30 a.m. and 1 to 2:30 p.m. on those days. Register online.
Celebrating Christa
• The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord is continuing its program “Reach for the Stars: Celebrating Christa McAuliffe” through Sunday, Feb. 1, according to the Center’s website, starhop.com. “Join us as we honor the legacy of Christa McAuliffe and the STS-51L Challenger crew. Together, we remember their lives, their courage, and their enduring impact on education and space exploration,” the website said.On Saturday, Jan. 31, the center will host “Challenger: Soaring with Christa McAuliffe,” described on the website: “Journey through Christa’s life in this multi-media immersive living history performance, suitable for all ages.” Doors open at 5 p.m. Go online to purchase tickets for Jan. 31 or to purchase admission tickets for the week-long programming and reserve planetarium tickets.
• Squam Lakes Natural Science Center, 23 Science Center Road in Holderness, nhnature.org, is offering Wild Winter Walks Saturdays Jan. 17 and Jan. 24 as well as select Sundays and Saturdays in February and March. At 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., take a 90-minute guided walk with a naturalist along the live animal exhibit trail to see the animals with their winter coats, according to a press release. The cost is $18 per person and the walks are geared toward ages 6 and up, the release said. Dress for the outdoors; see the website for tickets.
Otherworldly
• Seacoast Science Center at Odiorne Point State Park in Rye will hold a free Nature@Nite program on Friday, Jan. 16, from 4 to 6 p.m. with a presentation about “Oceans Beyond Earth” at 5 p.m. with Caleigh MacPherson, a NASA Ambassador, according to seacoastsciencecenter.org, where you can register to attend the event.
Rabbits!
Beaver Brook Association, 117 Ridge Road in Hollis, will hold “Magic of Rabbits!” for ages 6 and up on Thursday, Jan. 15, from 3:30 to 5 p.m., according to beaverbrook.org, where you can register for the class.
Open for MLK Jr. Day
• The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, 6 Washington St. in Dover, childrens-museum.org, will be open Monday, Jan. 19, with sessions from 9 a.m. to noon and 1 to 4 p.m., according to the website, where you can purchase tickets in advance. In the afternoon the museum will feature an artist visit with Taintor-the-Painter, who will “share the wonders of the circle as an important geometric shape and as a significant metaphor. Engage in making something colorful and fun with a variety of circle inspired hands-on activities and one, two, or more group collaborations. No experience necessary and perfect for all ages,” the website said.
• McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Manchester will be open on Monday, Jan. 19, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., according to starhop.com, where you can purchase tickets to the Center and tickets to planetarium shows
Disney on Ice presents Frozen & Encanto on Thursday, Jan. 8, and Friday, Jan. 9, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Jan. 10, at 10:30 a.m., 2:30 p.m. and 6:30 p.m. at SNHU Arena, 555 Elm St. in Manchester, according to snhuarena.com, where you can find tickets. “Audiences will see Anna, Elsa, Mirabel, and the Madrigal family live, as well as fan favorites Mickey Mouse, Minnie Mouse, Donald, Goofy, and many more,” according to a press release.
Get out on the ice yourself. In Concord, outdoor ice skating at White Park Pond (skate rentals are available at The Merrimack Lodge Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m.), the pond at Beaver Meadow Golf Course and Rollins Park are open, weather permitting, according to the city’s Parks and Rec Department Facebook page, where you can find updates.
Outdoor ice skating has also begun for the season at Dorrs Pond in Manchester, according to Manchester’s Parks and Recreation Department Facebook page. The warming hut is open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and on weekends during hours announced each week, according to the post. “All hours are weather permitting” and skaters must provide their own skates, the post said.
Speaking of Concord
SPARC — Sports, Play, Arts & Recreation Club — returns for Concord and Penacook residents Saturdays and Sundays, Jan. 10 through March 29, at the City-Wide Community Center, 14 Canterbury Road in Concord, according to the winter Parks and Recreation Department brochure at concordparksandrec.com. Sessions for families and kids 10+ are 2 to 3:30 p.m and for kids ages 10 to 16 from 3:30 to 5 p.m., according to the flyer about the event, which you can also find on the city’s Facebook page.
Speaking of Bruno (or not)
• See Encanto on the big screen on Sunday, Jan. 11, at 2 p.m. The 2021 animated musical screens in Sing-Along format at BNH Stage, 16 S. Main St. in Concord, according to ccanh.com where you can purchase tickets. Doors open at 1 p.m.
