Invasion of the gumballs (and pic from snow)

There are a few sweetgum trees at the back of our lot.  Most are not actually on our property, but the gumballs do fall on our property.  One limb in particular that originates in the neighbor's yard and has grown horizontally over our yard as it reached for the light is loaded with gumballs.

 

Quite a few have fallen already, and I raked up some yesterday and burned them.  The raking was peaceful, but I'm thinking a leaf blower might have made shorter work of the project.

 

There are more to come:

 

In other news, our record breaking cold streak has ended.  The Raleigh Durham Airport recorded 201 consecutive hourly readings of below freezing.  One of the local meteorologists who usually is a straightforward "just the facts" kind of guy, used the word "mercifully" to tweet that the freezing weather had "mercifully ended."  I was amused at his use of the word, but I agreed with his assessment.  Here is a picture of the snow last Thursday while we were still frozen.