Glorious Oaks

We revere the mighty oak for its strength, its fine grain in furniture, its resilience in resisting severe weather, its tolerance of extreme heat, extreme drought, extreme cold, extremes period -- just to name a few amazing things about various oak species. This week we've also been treated to a show of glorious color put on by the red, white, black, and pin oaks in Minnesota.

Oaks on the shore of Lake Vadnais reservoir.

At Fish Lake in Maple Grove.

Early morning reflection in our local lake up the street.

Along the railroad track in Shoreview's Reservoir Woods.

This scene would have been even prettier a couple of weeks ago.

Contrary to what you might expect, these are not the leaves of red oak, but white oak!

These are red oak leaves -- but the color is highly variable. Some are redder than this.

A handy guide for identifying oak leaves:

http://www.indieprettyprojects.com/2010/04/indie-pretty-id-guide-designing-with.html