One thing leads to another

It was time to pay the quarterly taxes again so I picked up my aunt next door since she had to pay hers too. While at her house she pointed out a medium-sized limb that had broken off and was hanging in the tree in her front yard. It dangled low enough that I could reach it by hand and yank it all the way out. After doing so I looked upward more intently to see if there were any others and I noticed a larger limb had grown so that it was resting on the phone wire (from the pole out front to her house). At that point I told her we'd go pay the taxes at the town hall and then I'd get my pole pruner and trim the branch to get it off the wire.

So after the fifteen minute errand that's what I set out to do. I trimmed off the part which extended over the wire such that the remaining part was still actually resting on the wire, but only by a few inches. Then I started trying to saw further back on the branch, more towards the tree trunk. As I cut through the branch it started to pinch the blade and I couldn't make any more progress. I also noticed an audible cracking sound coming from the the tree trunk area. I had to hit the blade out of the notch and then I tried a different spot, but got the same result.

I then examined things more closely and quickly saw that the entire large limb had almost completely broken off at the trunk and was only attached by a little bit. It was shifting and cracking more as I tried to saw and that's why the blade was being pinched as the entire limb would sag more in the middle.

Next I decided to try sawing a few inches from the wire and was still having difficulty. Finally I just used the pole pruner to push up on the branch and quickly knock the phone wire out from under it and the entire limb came crashing down. Apparently the phone wire was supporting the weight and was pretty much the only reason the limb hadn't come crashing down sooner.

The downed branch was still attached at the trunk, but it was by such a little bit and the wood was so rotted that I was able to simply pull the entire limb around and it broke off there as well, falling completely to the ground. After that, cleanup was easy.

All in all, not a terribly difficult job or anything, but much more than I'd anticipated when I thought I'd just trim the branch so it would no longer put pressure on the phone wire. Some days are like that.