Bye bye tree

I will miss your piles of leaves for the kids to play in.
I will NOT miss your piles of leaves plugging the gutters.

This picture is when they've just started to take the lower branches off. (Sorry it's blurry. The camera focused on the truck and I didn't notice.)
Now, what to do with the newly available space? Hmmmm. Maybe monkey-girl's apple tree (she started it from a seed), or a raised bed, or some Rhododendrons or some combination. There's actually quite a lot of space without the crazy tree in the way. Oh!!!! I know!!!!! A Secret Garden. Now I have to get the graph paper out and start planning!

(It was planted WAY too close to the house by the previous owner. He probably didn't realize how big it would get. I hated to get it taken down, but it was just so impractical. I couldn't bear the thought of trimming it every year and cleaning the gutters multiple times each year. I was also a bit worried about roots into the foundation - ours and our neighbour's.)