tuft

The pasture was coated with frost, but the cows were out there, grazing on the last few tufts of fresh grass.

And after the rains, some have already begun to leaf — welcome tufts of green to the charred landscape.

"He forgot the eyes at first, so we got him a carrot, put the nose on and he put some eyes on and gave it a little hair tuft," she explained.

In it is a tuft of Mason's hair and she then shows everyone his handprints, made following his death.

Then there are the changes that feel closer to a Cronenbergian freakout: curiously dense new tufts of back hair, slightly sharper teeth, a body count of dead critters each morning on the doorstep.