Trees, dead flowers, and sticks

My dear Hoss loves sticks. Whenever we come home I always try to make sure he gets at least 10 minutes of playing with a stick he finds in the front yard. If not, the screaming and gnashing of teeth which occurs is barely surviveable.

We have several trees in our 10 foot by 10 foot front yard/parking area. So many trees our home rarely sees sunshine on the front, which helps with keeping A/C bills down, but not with the allergies.

These recently have been falling from the tree directly in front of our front door.

They are dead flowers which once bloomed several weeks ago. They were very short lived, so short lived that I barely realized the tree was blooming.

Here's the tree. The yellow you see between the branches is a lamp. It was obvious tree growth was not considered when determining the placement of decorative street lamps.

The thousands of brown things on the ground are annoying when you try to run out to toss something in the trash without shoes on, but Hoss enjoys "sweeping" the thousands of dead, brown blooms with his chosen stick for the day.

If only he would sweep inside as well. I have a stick called a broom he might be interested in.