Yes, it's a silver maple. It came with the house. We contemplated taking it down 20 years ago, but it provided really nice shade on our back lawn. We park our chairs under it in the summer.
Everything else we've planted, except the fruit trees, is tough. We've got red oak, burr oak, norway maple and purple ash. They've grown pretty big since we planted them, but they're not on the back lawn. If we took down the maple and planted a new tree, we'd be dead before it got big.
I'm contemplated paying an aborist to trim the tree next spring inorder to minimize future breakage. The long long branches are the biggest problem. Although there may not be anymore left!
THere are at least twice as many branches down now. Possibly a quarter of the tree.
If you're interested in oak seedlings - I've got LOTS to get rid of!
