Always begin with a big bang...

My novel starts with "the Big Bang" and with 25 days to go, Conan is already at it:

Final Tree Work

So you think that's a tree? Ha! It's just one giant limb of my enormous cottonwood that used to stand over 100 foot tall. That limb was so large, and so dangerous that PNM came to remove it. You'll see...
now it's just a stub.
Really, that giant limb was attached to that remaining stub. This tall, skinny branch was the last one. Here's a closer view -- And, once that one was down, this is how the remaining tree structure looks.
It will stay like this until I build my tree house/aerial writing room/star gazing platform in the spring.