151/366: Half an Oak

When Kate and I were looking for a house back in late 2002, one of the things that sold us on this place was the back yard. The lot is very deep, unusually so for this part of Niskayuna, so there's a lot of space in the back yard, and it was pleasantly shaded by trees. We've since taken down the maples that were on the south side, but there's an enormous oak in the northeast corner that we've left in place, which is a really nice tree.

Our neighbor to the north, however, was not as fond of this tree, as she was really into gardening, and the oak casts much of that yard in shade. When we were having the maples taken out, she hinted a bunch that she wouldn't mind having the oak disappear as well, but we like it. I did, however, tell her that it would be OK to have the tree service trim back the branches that extended over the fence, so long as it didn't hurt the tree.

This is the result:

The giant oak tree in our back yard, showing the aggressive pruning of branches that stick over the fence. The giant oak tree in our back yard, showing the aggressive pruning of branches that stick over the fence.

(That's at sunset yesterday, but there wasn't much color thanks to the cloud cover, so I made this a greyscale image.)

From our yard, it's not really that noticeable-- I had to stand in a slightly inconvenient spot to get this-- especially in summer when it's fully leafed out. It's pretty striking from the back angle, though, especially in the fall and winter. I've been meaning to get a photo of this for a while, and yesterday was the first good opportunity.

Tags

More like this

We're very happy with Chateau Steelypips, and we especially enjoy our back yard: Of course, it's not without its problems, as you can see in that picture (and another that I'll put below the fold). The yard is pleasantly private and shady, thanks to a row of maples along the right side, and an…
At this point in the fall, most things in my garden have closed up shop till next spring. Oh, there are some chrysanthemums blooming, and the Virginia sweetspire and chokeberry tree have put on their fiery fall colors, but there's not much in the way of growth going on. Except for the evil…
This picture is from yesterday, but the scene was more or less the same this morning: A rabbit had hopped into our yard, to eat the spilled seed under the bird feeder (or something over there-- it's like a Disney movie sometimes, with all manner of happy little woodland creatures), so we let the…
There's a discontinuous jump here, if you're paying attention to photo-a-day numbering, but I'm skipping ahead of the cruise-centered backlog to write a more difficult entry. Back in December, when we lost the Queen of Niskayuna, I had her cremated, and said I'd do something nice as a memorial,…