Death from pine cones
Our front yard is graced by a bunya-bunya tree that grows 13-pound pine cones at the very top of the probably 45-foot tree. The first time this happened, we were rather startled as enormous (larger than a pineapple) cones began to fall and hit the ground and house. Let me tell you, when one hit the roof we noticed it. We began to tell our friends to enter through the garage rather than the front door, for fear they might be killed by a falling cone. Don mowed the lawn in a hard hat, which I was certain would fail to protect him from a direct hit.
Today we had Tri Valley Tree Service come and denude the tree of its deadly cones, which seem to form about every 4 years. An intrepid and brave gentleman climbed the tree with his cleated boots and then severed the cones from the branches. The kids and I watched from the safety of the house, counting the cones as they fell. I came up with 59 of the things. We got them early this time, so they were probably only 5 pounds rather then the 13 pounder we measured the last time. It was 4 years between cone formings this time, so let's hope it takes that long again.
Of course, as a homeschooler, I had to find one of the cones that was broken apart and help my kids dissect it, though I did all the work since bunya trees are the porcupine equivalent of the tree world. I think I might have been more interested than the kids were, but they played along for awhile. All in all, it was a fairly fascinating morning.