Pine tree 1, Mandi 0. Help!

[mandolin]

So my neighbor pointed out that the pine tree out back in my yard was so weighted down with snow it was leaning on the power line.

Crap.

After about 45 minutes of beating the tree with a shovel, failing to hit it with a brick and trying and failing to climb it in the hopes of shaking the snow off the top part that's leaning on the power line, the top half of the tree is still covered in snow and still leaning on the power line. I can't throw anything high enough to actually shake the snow off, it's really sad.

BGE is only taking outage reports. We haven't lost power yet.

In the hope that you see this before the power gets knocked out - any suggestions for dealing with this? I really don't want my tree to take out power for the neighborhood, because there's no way I'm going to be able to get out of here to find someplace with power....

Comments

[mtgat]

How impractical would it be to build a fire near the bottom?

[weirdweb.livejournal.com]

Not very practical given how close it is to other bushes and the neighbor's "toy barn."

I may have to wait and see tomorrow morning; my neighbor took a look at it too and suspects that trying to whack at it the way I've been doing might make things worse. Also, it sounds like another neighbor might be trying to organize a "Let's Dig Ourselves Out" thing tomorrow before the game, so I can try to see if I can get a little more help then. (The plows tend to ignore our little dead-end street.)