I forgot again....
1 of a thousand times over 72 years that the Good Lord was looking after my old ass..
Anyway, Hurricane Ike came thru on Sept 13. Power was out everywhere and was projected to be out for at least 2 weeks. Farther up the line from this tree, the line turned south and a big hickory was down and had both the primary and neutral lines pinned down and I already knew this line was dead. (this was on the end of the lateral feed line). The butt end of this old pine was off to the right, hung up on an old 6' chain link fence all grown up with big yaupon and sweetgum saplings so bad you can't see the fence in the photo, with the rootball on the other side of the fence. I didn't care about the fence but the tree and downed line was blocking my only way in and out, so I was determined to clear the road. It was still pouring rain, I was wet, muddy, tired and not thinking straight. I made the 1st cut on the left side of the lines and no problem. The tree moved up just a little and the part to the left fell away. Then moved to the right side of the 2 lines to make another cut, and never considered how much tension was on the lines.
When I made the 2nd cut, about a foot to the right of the line, in the blink of an eye, both lines sprung up in the air like a rocket, with the one on the right whizzing right by my left ear. Another 6 inches closer and it would have taken my head off. The whizzing up lines simply sheared branches off as they went up. I watched, almost in slow motion as the center section (part A) of the tree was also launched about 35' into the air, made one flip at the top of it's journey and came down about 3 feet from my almost new 08 pickup parked just off to the left of the picture.. Talk about needing to clean my pants out..twice in a few seconds.
The downed hickory tree on up the line was messy to clean up but not nearly as dangerous. I decided I had played sawyer enough and to wait a week to do it...
