Do you want to go look at the double woolly tree?

To my knowledge, there exists no tree known as the double woolly tree, but Amanda was led to believe otherwise.

One day Amanda (my youngest sister) brought home some sort of spiky fruit from a tree and demanded to know the identity of the tree it had come from. My grandpa declared that it was a double woolly. My mom could tell my the look in his eye that he was making it up. Amanda was dubious of that answer, so she led him to the tree to see if his answer changed. It didn't. She still didn't completely believe him until he posted something on Facebook about it. Somehow a post on Facebook makes it official that my grandpa isn't joking. But Amanda still had some reservations about the double woolly. When I got back, the fruit was waiting for me, and I was told that I should go look at it with her sometime to determine its true identity.

Today was that day. My question of the day was the one you read in the title of this post. After Amanda had her snack, we headed out with the tree identification book in hand. Along the way we chatted about all sorts of things. I love hearing about the world from the perspective of an eight-year-old. My discussed everything from possible explanations of the death of a possum in the road to scooter basketball in gym class.

We arrived at the tree in question. I pulled out the dichotomous identification guide and taught Amanda how to use it. Eventually the terminology got too technical so I took over. In the meantime she rambled happily about school. We decided the tree was a bitternut hickory. The walk back home was spent in the same way the walk to the tree was spent. It was a lovely walk on a lovely day with my youngest sister.