Major Tree Trimming

We have a huge tree in front of our house--a "willow oak" I now know, since I finally got around to identifying it. (When Amy was out visiting several years ago, she said she thought it was some kind of oak, but it wasn't in my handy-dandy Michigan Trees book from botany class in college, so I never confirmed that. Bob wonders when Amy's friends will stop doubting her, LOL!) Anyhow, this tree just keeps growing and growing, and we have not spent much time cutting it back or shaping it or anything really. We were taking a walk last week, and we noticed how most other people with this kind of tree have the lowest branches a lot higher than ours, and consequently, their trees don't look like they are taking over their front yards, as our did. So we got busy yesterday.
Many, many large branches were cut off. We were ruthless! And the difference is so amazing. The whole front yard just opened up! You can see our house from the street! I wish I had a "before" picture, but I really didn't think about it. Bob was up on the ladder using this new electric reciprocating saw he got not too long ago. It worked really well! Here is Nathan demostrating how to use this fine saw to cut branches into appropriately sized lengths for future fire pit use.

Luke also had several turns with the new saw. Plenty of cutting to go around!

Caleb was an awesome helper in toting all these new logs back to our wood pile in the back yard.

It truly was an all-day project. After dinner, we went back out there and bundled up all the branches that didn't get cut up for firewood so the trash guys will take them.

So here is a picture of the tree in its entirety. Note how you can see the front lights on the house--Bob just replaced them, so they are really nice, but you couldn't even see them before, unless you were walking on the front walk up to our door! I don't know how tall the tree is, but we have a 2 story colonial house with 9 foot ceilings on the main floor, so it's pretty tall! We've never actually had big trees in our yard before in any other house we've lived in. and now we don't feel like the branches are about to poke our eyes out if we walk across the yard!