R.I.P. Big Coconut Tree

Before

We are having some landscaping done, and I am taking pictures of the process. I am excited about the landscaping-our yard right now mostly consists of California grass (read: really tall weeds)-but I am sad about one thing. We have (had) a beautiful palm tree in our yard that had to be removed. It was leaning toward the house, and if it ever came down, it would have taken out the entire front portion of our house, not to mention the possibility of our cars and anyone or anything which might have been in the yard at the time. We wouldn't have been so worried about the lean, but the ground looked like it was coming up around the base of the tree, and we get massive wind storms in December/January which could easily topple the tree right over onto our house.

This is what our tree looked like when they started.  See the man in the tree?

Now do you see him?  I think this picture provides a great perspective on just how huge these palm fronds are.  You can see how damaging just one of these could be coming down on your house or your car, now imagine the whole tree coming down!

Here is what our tree looked like after about half the leaves had been removed.

This picture makes me want to cry.  I feel terrible about having done this to our magnificent tree, but we just couldn't risk not having it removed.  It's hard to tell, but the man is standing against the tree and working on the top with a chain saw.  The picture sort of looks like he is kneeling with his feet sticking out behind him, but the part that looks like his feet is actually a piece of debris falling down from the tree.

After

You can see how much other stuff we had removed too because you can actually see our house in this picture vs. the first picture, where you could not.  I kept trying to do side-by-side comparisons of the two pictures and I couldn't figure out whey they didn't seem quite right.  It took me a while, but I finally realized that it was because one was horizontal and the other was vertical.  Duh!  I was trying to show the house without the tree, but I didn't think to take the picture vertically to show all the space that the tree was no longer occupying.  On the "Before" picture I didn't think about which way to take it; I shot it vertically because that was the only way to get the tree in the picture.  Once again, there is a reason I am not a professional photographer!  BTW, I did photoshop most of these pictures, but only to adjust for lighting so you could see the details better.  I didn't make the tree taller or the man smaller or anything!