Tiny Pine - Missoula, Montana

“Pick up a pinecone and count the spiral rows of scales. You may find eight spirals winding up to the left and 13 spirals winding up to the right, or 13 left and 21 right spirals, or other pairs of numbers. The striking fact is that these pairs of numbers are adjacent numbers in the famous Fibonacci  series: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21... Here, each term is the sum of the previous two terms. The phenomenon is well known and called phyllotaxis. Many are the efforts of biologists to understand why pinecones, sunflowers, and many other plants exhibit this remarkable pattern." - Stuart Kauffman, At Home in the Universe: The Search for the Laws of Self-Organization and Complexity

Cone Cluster, Missoula, Montana

More spring freshness of the pine variety - almost a sturdy nosegay! In the language of flowers, what secret lover’s message would such a grouping convey? 

(Click the text links to read about this fragrant communication - which beats a text message hands down for romance.)

Countdown to Christmas, Missoula, Montana

Today the countdown to Christmas begins in earnest - 24 days left.

With little seeds of snow sprinkled about the foothills, we’ll hope the real thing sprouts to great white drifts just in time for the blessed day - but not much before. 
After all, there‘s commuting to be done, and driving skills decline remarkably with the each incremental layer of the cold white stuff.