Our departure last night from San Francisco was delayed by 3 hours due to 60 mph winds, but I finally made it in a little after midnight. The big maple tree in my neighbor’s back yard had been in bad shape (rot in the tree trunk, main branches) for a number of years now, and a note in my mailbox said that they had scheduled it to be taken out today. So this morning I kept track of the activities (hard to ignore with all the chainsaw noise!), and in the space of 5 short hours or so, the whole tree had been taken down – all the way to the ground. There was a wood chipper on hand as well, to make it easy to take away the wood. Here is a sequence of pictures. I was sad to see the tree go, but it will certainly let in a lot more afternoon sunlight into the western rooms of my house.