Uh-oh... UPDATED

So I woke up about 0200, couldn't get back to sleep, decided to read a bit. Mrs. Drang informed me that she was watching a DVD because the satellite dish was acting up again, "probably the snow." (See comments to previous post.)

About 0400 or so as I was about to turn out the light she came to bed and informed me that we might be about to lose the birch tree in the back yard.

"Nothing we can do about it now" we agreed.

Right.

Ten minutes later I was out in the back yard.

One of the limbs her father had secured with a line (plastic-sheathed clothed line, I think) was hanging down almost to the ground; the line had snapped.

The upper branches from the limb were over-hanging the corner of the roof, although I couldn't get a good look. Being me, I grabbed a large pair of side-cutting loppers from the back porch/lawn tool storage, and trimmed it up as best I could.

I think I need a real chain saw.

Did get the satellite dish cleared, though.

The tree in question.
Pretty sure I ran pics of it in pretty much this condition a few years ago.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

Same tree, from driveway, post-dish clearing.
The white streaks are more snow falling, BTW.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The hood of Mrs. Drang's car.
The snow is heavy enough that the front half of the hood was cleared, the snow there slid off of it's own weight.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The solar-powered garden light seems to have problems...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

For those of you in Fimbulwinter-free zones:
This picture was taken with ambient light, no flash.
"Waiting for daylight to assess the damage" wasn't completely necessary...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

No bird baths today...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

While I was out there I could gear limbs cracking all over the neighborhood, but did not see any actual damage to any of our trees. I think maybe what woke me up was a limb breaking down the street.

UPDATE: Just heard a loud cracking noise from outside. 😟 Can't tell if it's ours or a neighbors. Will wait for full daylight for further inspection, don't want to walk around under it if  it's about to go...😨

UPDATE 2: Lost power just before 0700. Lost two limbs from the birch tree, they fell down in the street. Called in power outage, notified 911 of a downed line in the street. Checked out the limbs in the street, decided it was enough of a public nuisance I needed to clear it away...

...and my silly little electric chain saws had no power.

Dug around in the garage and found a fairly large saw that Mrs. Drang's father had, grabbed it and a pair of offset loppers and got the street cleared, if not the entire mess cleaned up.

Power just came back on, trying to decide if I'd rather have breakfast or a shower first...