This column is about your garden. So it's about your zone, your soil, your plants. Once a week Dorinda will chastise you, commiserate with you, tell you what you absolutely can't leave for another week, all the while drawing inspiration from the daily journals she's been keeping for several years about her gardening experiences here in the Hudson Valley. P robably no thinking person can cut down a big tree without pause.
Big trees are big, and size alone earns some respect.
Longevity has a lot to do with it too. The enormous trunk was half rotted and riddled with carpenter ants and going to come down soon anyway, likely taking most of our house and a neighbor's barn with it. There was good reason to remove that tree. Still, you're killing something Big, and, like slaughtering a pig, it isn't a process to undertake casually. But, you live in the country awhile, you toughen up.