Major surgery

Not for me, thank goodness -- the patient was the corkscrew willow in my back yard. In early November, I finally got around to hiring an arborist to clean out the dead wood before a hurricane came along and did it in a less-controlled manner.

Before and after

A secondary goal was to raise the crown and cut off one of the superhighway exits to the roof of the house that the squirrels had been taking advantage of:

Shutting down the off ramp

I wish I had a picture of the guy up in the tree, lopping off branches with a chainsaw held in one outstretched hand. Definitely a job you want to hire an insured company to do.