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For millennia mosses have been used as insulation, diapers, and in many other ways that require absorption. I had to know more.

They’re in my yard, in a yard two blocks away, or on someone’s front porch chewing pumpkins. It’s rare that I take my daily four-mile trek without seeing these white-tailed wonders, often grazing near the sidewalk, seemingly unafraid.

Aside from being really small, the petals of cacao flowers curve into a tiny hood that cover’s the stamen (the male, pollen-making part of the flower). This configuration of the petals basically makes it impossible for something the size of a honey bee to get the job done.

The beach in question is characteristic of beaches everywhere there have been glaciers: covered in well-sorted, multi-hued pebbles. There’s a rock on this beach for every personality.

Visitors to Montana’s Jim Girard Memorial Tamaracks Grove near Seeley Lake have differing reactions when viewing Gus for the first time. I was awed by the 163-foot height, craning my neck to see the very tippy top and then tilting back even further to view the additional 10 feet of dead tree top.

I have the greatest opportunity to observe the phenology of the ever-present white-tailed deer. White-tailed deer are delightful to watch as they graze in the meadow in spring and summer, gather around a fallen spruce to munch on sweet lichens, or leap over fallen logs, their white fluffy tails waving like flags.

There I was, calmly taking a shower, when I realized I was not alone. Sitting on top of a bottle of shampoo waving its antennae and staring at me with its red eyes was a Boisea trivittata. Despite their scientific label, there is nothing trivial about these ubiquitous pests known to us by their common name: boxelder bugs.

The moon lit up my yard that morning, when I went out with the dogs at 6:30. Recently fallen snow in the surrounding Sapphire foothills reflected the full moon’s light. I could see almost as well as during the day. The horses in the pasture watched us, as I’m sure they do each morning, though we usually can’t see them. The trees and shrubs glowed in the bluish predawn.

An angry phoenix, the new bird appeared stretching its wings, repeatedly slapping the surface as it kept launching its body upright, almost leaping out of the water. All the while, it called out, the trembling sound of a woodwind instrument bouncing off the dense bowl of that valley.

Their height and orange-brown bark, scaly and large-patterned, drew me to them, but I knew little else about them.