Good Bye Fall, Good Bye Tree, Hello Snow

For the past couple weeks, this is what we have looked out our window to find:

I have so enjoyed the fall colors this year.  And surprisingly enough, the weather has been amazing. I've been able to just sit on my front step and look in amazement.  Seriously, aren't these Aspens gorgeous?  And the burning bushes are redder than they have ever been!

My parents came over the other day, and I was visiting with them in our driveway when I noticed this.

A huge crack in our tree!  That's not good!  I told Briant right away and he called some tree guys to come over and look at it.  They said it definitely couldn't be salvaged... it had to go.  The wind was blowing a little when the second guy came over.  It didn't take him long before he told us this tree probably wasn't going to last much longer.  We really didn't want to risk the fact that this tree could fall on our house if we didn't take action.  Plus we knew there was a storm coming in.  You could see the crack had gotten bigger and it was swaying in the wind.  Briant said he even heard it crack.  The guy left but was back in a jif with his bucket truck, to started sawing down the tree.  Thank goodness for chain saws because it took no time at all.  It was getting close dark when they started.
We watched from inside.

Indeed, there is a lot to clean up now.  We aren't exactly sure what we are going to do with it all.  I was raised to, "Waste not, want not."  So I would like to give to those who have a wood stove and need wood to burn... there is plenty of kindling!  Briant on the other hand, just wants it off our lawn ASAP.  He is willing to get rid of it even if he has to borrow a truck and take it to the dump.  What to do?

Monday morning we got our first snow storm.  It snowed all day.  I loved it!  It felt like Christmas.  I felt like I needed to get out the Christmas decor because all my fall stuff didn't match the way it looked outside.  Don't worry, I didn't.... I won't do that until after Thanksgiving.

This is what the tree pile looked like outside. 

I took pictures the next day, when the sun came out.  Everything in my yard has a healthy layer of snow and ice.  It looked so cool.

I counted the rings on the tree.  23 years old.  :(  It's too bad it had to go.  We will miss it.