SO.....last night, 3 to 4" of snow between 9:00 and 3:00 AM, when I was up and knocking snow off the smaller trees at 3:00 while listening to pistol shot sounds around the neighborhood as branches broke off trees. The snow is very wet, and most trees haven't lost their leaves yet. I had branches up to 4" diameter actually leaning up against my car, which I had backed down the driveway to the end.
Got up at 6:00 and found that an elm tree in our yard about 20 feet from the road had split in half and was blocking one of two routes out of the neighborhood. Two of my neighbors were already working on it and asked if I had a chainsaw...which I did. Damn thing ran, chain jumped, ran again, chain jumped, and on the third try jumped off the drive sprocket. It's only 40 years old!!! Guess a new chainsaw is on the agenda for today.
So far we're in $400 to have the downed half of the tree cut up and removed, and to chip all the small branches and remove them. We still heed to have the tree taken out.
It's still snowing and we will probably get 3 inches more today.
The tree:
A shot of our driveway this AM after I made a path for my wife to back out of her side of the garage:
After cutting back the tree enough to get traffic by:
Picnic table on back purch:
Another driveway view....I got real lucky because two large branches were touching my car this AM but neither actually hit it. Close calls!
