Snow and box elder trees

I'll give you three guesses as to what I did all day today. It shouldn't be too hard to guess if you've read my recent blog posts. I'll give you a hint... it has something to do with snow... and a shovel.

Yup.  Another 2+ inches.  We had 13.8 inches of snow during November.  Winter is off to a fast start.  And of course snow is in the weather forecast each day for the next week.

When I was shoveling the snow at the end of my driveway today a woman walked by on the road.  She asked - with an amazed look on her face - if I shoveled my entire driveway by hand all winter.

Yup.  Guilty as charged.

She kept walking.  I think she didn't want to linger near a crazy person.

I'm going to go to bed early tonight as I am a bit tired.  And I probably will have to shovel snow again tomorrow.

You've seen photos of snow and pine trees. Here a few photos of snow and the box elder trees next to the house.

The first photo is of a female box elder tree. She doesn't release her seeds until Spring.  Seed pods on a female box elder tree are a favorite food source for box elder bugs.  I didn't have near as many box elder bugs this Fall on the house walls near this tree.  I think our cool wet Spring may have had something to do with that.

The next photo is of the male box elder tree that I had cut back last year around this time as the upper parts were dying.  The tree was in much better health this year.  Last year's photos can be seen here and here.