An Update

After PSE&G cut up the tree enough to free the lines at 3 AM (chainsaws at 3AM, what a wonderful sound!), at 10 AM their crews arrived in bucket trucks to reconnect the line to the house up near the roof.  To my surprise, they didn't power it down first!  To clear the street, they taped the phone and cable wires to the power line.  They pointed out to me that the heavy cable running down to the meter was damaged and that I needed an electrician to do that repair.  So, I got an electrician.  Hours and hours later and a few thousand dollars poorer, there's now a nice conduit running from the meter to the weatherhead (which is what they call the connection between the house wiring and the line from the street).  The beautiful arborvitae, about ten feet tall, that used to shield the electric meter from view is now gone, as they needed access behind it.  During all of this, the tech from Verizon arrived and refused to touch the phone cable as it was taped to the power cable!  Needless to say, the inevitable happened — sometime overnight, the tape gave up the ghost, the phone line fell into the street, and a car or truck hit it, ripping it off the house and ripping off the junction box as well, leaving me with no phone or Internet service.  They came the next day, strung a new line, and put in a new junction box, but the waste of time, energy, money, and effort because the tech wouldn't stake the line back to the house just boggles the mind!  So I'm pretty much back to where I was, missing one 30' spruce and one 10' arborvitae.  My landscaper is supposed to come this week to cut up and remove the tree.  Once that's done and the snow and ice melt (if they ever do), I can see just how badly damaged the roses are.  This spring, there's going to be a LOT of pruning and trimming and redoing in the side yard garden!  Photos of this disaster are posted on the Side Yard Garden page of the web site.