Jack Frost sure has a sense of humor this winter.

I felt the need to share this with my readers. My cousin recently sent me this photograph of a twig covered in ice. This is an undoctored photograph of a real event that occurred in nature, taken during the latest cold spell in frigid Long Island, New York.

The formation is quite literally nuts. Not only is the shape obviously suggestive of a certain body part exclusive to males (hint: not the Adam’s apple), but the actual mass of ice seems wholly disproportionate with the little bitty twig inside. How did this much ice grow in so bulbous a configuration around so teeny a clipping of flora?

My cousin had no answer for this, as he was merely the discoverer. Apparently, the specific circumstances of the discovery—location, time, weather—did nothing to shed light on the mystery, or else my cousin would have reported on it of his own accord. That’s about as far as my journalistic due diligence took me on this particular assignment.

So anyway, there you have it. This hunk of ice had no business taking on such mass, taking on this particular shape, or ballooning with such a symmetrical and shiny finish. And yet it did. A winter miracle, folks, and one with only one evident takeaway:

It’s cold as balls out there.