We had four trees removed from our backyard today.  Two were dead and two were dying.  I hate to cut down trees, but when they’re sickly there’s no point in keeping them around.   Before:

During:

After:

A separate crew will come back and grind the stumps in a few days.  Our backyard is looking so sunny now that I’m starting to draw mental plans for major garden expansion.  It’s probably not quite as sunny as I’m picturing, though.  The apple tree should get a lot more fresh air and sunshine now; saving it was a big part of why we chose to do this.