Yard Work

I am not sure what inspires me to tackle yard work. I am not sure if it is the occasional bouts of caffeine induced highs or as my husband says, I just want to punish myself. Regardless, I decided that the yard needed mowing today - so as soon as I can track down the keys and crank the mower on, I made an effort to check yard work off my list of things to do.
Despite finding a dead bird that looks decayed enough to gross me out, mowing the lawn went fairly uneventfully. However, as soon as I put the mower away, I set about tackling the weeping willow branches that I snipped off the tree the other day. My husband had started a fire and it was my duty to keep it going/clear out underneath the willow tree.

Suffice it to say my husband really had no business starting fires after having surgery 4 days ago. However, it's embarrassing to admit that I really had no business trying to help him out. Yet, even though my lower abdomen and back were hurting, I duck underneath the tree to get the aforesaid branches.

The second handful in, I stand up and turn around and thump the side of my head against a branch I had snipped off previously. As the 'F' word came out of my mouth, I make my exit out from the tree and throw the branches on the fire. When it came to the 5th handful of branches, I started to notice stuff on the ground the branches were laying on/around. Ahhh, cool! Mushrooms! And lookie here, its...

WTF? WHAT is that? I poke it with a branch and it makes a hollow sound. It looks kinda like an egg, but it wasn't - it actually looks like it has some sort of string attached to it. OMG -is that? Gackk!?? A tampon?

I tell myself to calm down. I tell myself I haven't touched it yet (I think) regardless of what it is. Determined to know exactly what it is, I announce to my husband:

"There is something weird underneath the tree."

"Oh?" He answers somewhat disinterestedly.

I spend this time picking a stick to poke it with. It answers back with a thaaampp, thaamppp sound and I am amazed I am unable to penetrate the outside of the freakish white-ish round-ish *thing*. I grab two sticks and balance one on each side to pick it up. One step and it drops. I try again and manage to get a few more steps. And again...

And manage to get it near my husband for him to look at.

"Isn't that a locust shell?" he asks.

Stifling a cry at my effort to get it to its resting spot, I answer: "Well, I was hoping YOU would TELL me what it was."

He kicks it away and I go back to grabbing more branches. And now I sit here drinking a glass of wine and haunted by visions of that *thing* that I am sure to dream about tonight because of my husband's ambiguity.