The things that I find in my yard...

I honestly would never have guessed we have these things in Michigan. But one day, there it was. Hanging from a branch next to my driveway. Scaring the crap out of me. I had to mow around it for months.

I should have photographed it before I cut it down, but the truth is, I was so excited when I was at the end of the driveway and I realized that the nasty vicious hornets (or whatever they were) were gone that I scurried straight over to the garage for the nippers and cut the damned thing down. The entryway wound up collapsing -- it hit the ground and crushed, revealing some fantastic details in the layering and... stuff inside. It'll get dissected before too long, but for now it's just so darned pretty, the whole thing is sitting on the bench on my porch.

And here's your scale to fully appreciate the ginormity.

Update: After a little bit of research, I'm quite convinced that this was the hive of the baldfaced hornet. Now I'm not normally bothered by bugs, flying or otherwise, but I instinctively stayed far away from these buggers. After reading that page, I'm glad I did. "Run like hell" indeed.