I can remember the first time I ran into an Osage orange, or more precisely the first time one ran into me.

It was in the late 1980s, and I was the editor of a small Eastern Shore paper as a tropical storm rolled up the East Coast.

As wind whipped the town's picturesque High Street, these grapefruit shaped, neon-green balls were flying around, rolling down the street, basically everywhere.

Sure enough, one whacked me in the shoulder.

This oddball of nature - really, it's an odd-shaped ball - is currently making a spectacle of itself in Linthicum, where it is falling from trees in front of a small apartment...