Moss on the Patio

All winter long, the dryer vent and the exhaust from our hot water furnace keep the backyard patio next to the house warm and moist. The snow melts a foot from the house, and as it warms up slightly in the spring to around 32 degrees, moss flourishes. It might creep some people out. (Dr. Pediatrcian likes to scrape it with his shoes.) Yet, each spring that we've lived here, I have taken joy in this first green sign amid all the brown mud and gunk in the rest of the yard. I love watching it grow and sprout little red "hairs." What an interesting creation, that can grow right on top of plain old bricks. Each spring Ms. Crazy Preschooler and I scrape some of it off the bricks and plant it in a flower pot and call it our moss garden. The crazy thing about moss is that it looks like it shrivels and dies when the weather gets warm and dry, but if you just leave it alone, there it is again as soon as things moisten up, bright green and cheery.