By Biff and Susan Andrews

• Dogwood trees are beautiful three seasons a year — white, green and red. What a great choice for a state tree.
• A live oak would be a great alternative.
• Pound for pound, there is no creature fiercer than a Carolina chickadee or a Norfolk spot.
• Algae is choking the stagnant waters of our lake. It looks like some giant creature threw up in it.
• Still waters are beautiful, even if they don’t run deep. And yes there is such a thing as a dawn calm and an evening calm.
• If you are not familiar with the concept of Phi (the Divine Proportion), look at the north end of a moon eye snail, or an olive shell or a whelk. Or the Parthenon or a pyramid.
• Nobody could look at a monarch butterfly or tiger swallowtail or a fritillary and not believe in the existence of God.
• “Crepuscular” has to be the finest word — and concept — in the English language.
• Any baby mammal is cute. Reptiles, insects, fungi — not so much.
• Did you know that the color of a flamingo’s plummage is determined by how many shrimp it eats. (I’m pretty dark pink, myself.)
• Moss is prettier than grass.
• If you have never felled a tree with a diameter greater than five feet, you don’t understand the term “earth-shaking.”
• Unless you’ve been through an earthquake magnitude 6.5 or greater.
• Fossils are beautiful in and of themselves, beyond what they signify or represent.
• If you’ve never seen a dolphin/mahi mahi/dorado “lit up,” you’ve never experienced the colors yellow, green and blue all at once. Look at a picture.
• Sharks are people, too. Don’t kill them unless you plan to eat them.
• There is no color more delicate than the green of a luna moth’s wings. Or the pattern of a cecropia moth’s wings.
• All God’s creatures have a place in the choir — wasps, slugs, moths, rats and even sharks.
• Fish, fruit and vegetables consumed within an hour of harvesting give true meaning to the word “fresh.”
• There is no motion in all of nature more elegant than the roll of a dolphin or whale.

God bless Mother Nature and all her offspring. Appreciate each for its unique qualities.

Susan and Bradford “Biff” Andrews are retired teachers and master naturalists who have been outdoor people all their lives, exploring and enjoying the woods, swamps, rivers and beaches throughout the region for many years. Email them at b.andrews22@live.com.