You can, vaguely, see the tree lying right-edge to almost left-edge, with the top of the tree in the driveway.  It doesn't help that most of the autumn maple-tree leaves in the area were blown against the downed tree.  With the mud from the newly-melted snow, everything is more-or-less a uniform reddish-brown.

The fallen object is actually just the upper-half of a 40' fir.  This image shows where it broke-off the trunk.  The tree was about as tall as it's neighbor to the left.  Had the entire tree come-down, it might have struck the power-lines on the opposite of the driveway.  That would have been bad.  It would have interrupted electrical service to the house, leaving us without a sump-pump in the middle of a bunch of melting snow.

Yesterday afternoon, Nicole & I took care of the downed treetop.  IANAL(umberjack), but I have been friends with one or two, helped Dad with the winter's firewood more than once, and read this book when I bought my first chainsaw.  Believe it or not, this is probably the most dangerous thing I've done with a chainsaw (not that I've done much, you understand).  The bottom-end of the trunk is above my head and dangerous to cut.  The top-end spilt into 3 trunks, so the weight is uneven and more prone to roll.  There are many springy pine-boughs compressed under the trunk.  Cut the wrong thing and the tree moves, maybe rolling onto you or driving a branch, the saw, etc. into you.  In this picture, you can see how I cut the limbs off the upper side, then lop-off the three tops.  That removed a lot of weight.  Then, starting at the top, I tested each branch on the sides, and cut them if they weren't under compression.  That left me with the tree balanced, accessible, and lighter.  After that, I carefully cut firewood-sized segments from the trunks until I thought the tree light enough to pull forward (out of its neighbor's branches) and roll onto the branchless surface.  After that, it was a simple matter of limbing the remnant and cutting it into firewood.

The brushpile on the left is about 1/3 of the total.  You can see the chainsaw in the background, to give an idea of the size of the pile.  I joked that we should be careful removing things from pile of pine boughs -- Les Stroud might be sleeping under them.  Nicole got the crappy job -- moving the 2-6' boughs to someplace else.  Trashed a pair of gloves with the sap.  Most of the cuttings she added to an existing brushpile.  I took some of it to the far-end of the property and dumped it there.  Should keep the bunnies & such warmer.

We bought it to replace the aged metal one left by the previous owners.  In the condition shown, it lasted less than 1 winter.  A plow hit it.  If you look closely, you'll notice 2 slots in the front of the post-cover, and a sliding-rail connection between the post-cover-and-newspaper segment and the mailbox proper.  The slots are for the screws that hold the cover to the post.  When struck by a plow, the torque is sufficient to (1) knock the segments apart (they're held together mostly by friction) and (2) wrench the lower segment around and off the post.

I purchased a Swing-Away Mailbox Bracket from Lee Valley.  The mailbox, proper, was undamaged.  I mounted it on the horizontal arm, and it was OK for a while.  (The swing bracket has been excellent.  Aside from the minor matter of it not returning to it's original location after being struck.  It's endured multiple plow hits.)

The second flaw in the mailbox became apparent only recently.  It's held closed, at each end, by a magnet.  Obviously, the magnets don't work on plastic.  There's a small steel plate screwed to the top of each opening.  The screw is small, not a bolt, and penetrates one layer of plastic.  Over time, the screw ceases to effectively hold the plate.  The plate rusts, interfering with the magnet's ability to hold.  Eventually the screw fails, or the magnet does.  The doors fall open.

The small-town Post Office here isn't  good at following directions.  Previously, we've left directions to hold our mail until we retrieved it.  Inevitably, despite our instructions, it would be delivered en masse on the first day of resumed postal service.  So, this time, we bowed to the inevitable and left instructions for the accumulated mail to be delivered.  Of course, we returned (at dusk!) to find the mailbox had been struck, the doors open, and (presumably) a week's worth of mail scattered in the 30 MPH wind.  We found some of it.  It's also possible that the Post Office kept the mail (because, of course, that would be exactly what we didn't instruct them to do).  What we found was very dry (for having lain on the newly-snow-free muddy lawn), so probably not on the ground long, and about what we'd expect for a single-day's delivery.
I'll be replacing the mailbox.  Soon.  Or maybe I'll just epoxy the magnets into place.

Did I mention the tree partially across the driveway?

Here's the result:

I have to say, I'm unusually satisfied with this one.  I don't know why.  The dog ramp I designed an constructed from scratch.  That was much more complicated and difficult.  I suppose it's the speed of execution.  I saw it, went into the shop, and built it.

Best guess is a female House Finch.  But really, I don't know.  She has the stubby, heavy, curved bill; the general indistinct brown streakiness; the gray behind her head (not really as prominent as seen here -- she was grooming it); and those could be whitish wing bars.  Sibley says they're here in the winter.  Whatever, she was cold.  This bird is hunkered-down on a depressed paver, against the wooden edging.  She's about as far out of the wind as it was possible to get that day.  Noticed her, became concerned, but she flew away a few minutes after this picture was taken.


New bird to me (yay!): Song Sparrow.  Gray and brown stripes on the head, heavy gray bill with a little color on it, brown stripes on white body converging to a spot on the chest, long & rounded tail.  Right place (Michigan & feeder) at the right time of year.

Saw this goldfinch sitting in the middle of the feeder full of Nyjer (thistle) seed.  I immediately thought, "Man, there's always some kid has to pee in the pool."

???  bi-colored bill like a Tree Sparrow, but lacks the distinctive rufous & gray head.  Dreaded House Sparrow, maybe?

Dark-Eyed Junco (Slate, male).  The thing in his beak is a freeze-dried insert larva.  Almost as many of these as there are goldfinches.  They don't (generally) eat from the feeders, though; preferring to scrounge seeds fallen beneath the feeders.  They have a neat hop-and-2-footed-scratch routine to uncover seeds buried in the snow.

Downy Woodpecker (female).

Downy Woodpecker (male -- red patch at the back of the head).  I really like that beady black eye.  I think he was watching me.

Mourning Dove.  Fat waddling gentlemen, unruffled at their buffet.  Unless a Blue Jay appears.  I've watched 30 other birds spook from the feeders, for no apparent reason, leaving 3-6 doves calmly strolling about the grounds.

Red-Bellied Woodpecker (female -- no red patch on top of head).  Note the rose-colored patch on the belly.  Largest bird to appear on the feeders, yet.  Strangely, also the easiest to spook.  Saw bird many, many times before able to take her picture.  Reacts to my movements, even only seen through window.

Tufted Titmouse.  I can always tell when a Tufted Titmouse is a the seed feeder.  They shell seeds against the feeder-arm.  Taking a seed in its beak, a bird will perch on the arm (like the chickadee and Chippy shown above) and hammer the seed against the metal arm until it opens.  This makes enough noise that I can hear it in the next room -- if the house is quiet, I can hear it upstairs.

White-Breasted Nuthatch.  In the characteristic head-down position.  I enjoy their distinctive, "laughing" call.  One the first birds I learned to recognize, and still a favorite.