Timber- taking down a dead tree

There's been a pine tree next to the Well House that we've been keeping our eyes on.  At least half of it's branches were dead, and the others weren't looking so great either.

You can kind of see a part of it on the left side of this old photo- although you can't see the whole thing (and it's half-deadness), you can see how close it is to the well house roof.

We were worried that if it fell down, it would damage the slate roof (that would be an unneeded expense!)  But if it was able to be saved, we wanted to keep it.  So, we trimmed it up, and spent two years watching & waiting for it to perk up.  We've finally decided it was time to take it down.

Mike started this while I was at work, and forgot to take a before photo... so that's why we have the old photo above!

When I arrived home (and ran to get the camera), it was already down...

I was relieved that Mike remembered to move the bird bath & iron bench that we had out there.
The top of the tree came mighty close to the picket fence!

Next spring we'll work on shaping up the flower beds around there.  I think I'd like to put window boxes on the four windows, or at least the two in front.