Getting Rid of the Bottlebrush Stump

This morning, I decided to do something productive on the day after Christmas, so I tackled getting rid of the dead Callistemon citrinus in my front yard.  This bottlebrush tree had been severely cut back before I moved in, and it only had a couple forlorn leaves on a secondary branch.  These soon died, leaving a large stump in the corner of my yard.  

I've wanted to get rid of it for a while, but I've been deterred by the girth of the stump.  But this weekend, I noticed that it was beginning to be covered with mushrooms, which I thought was good sign to take it out.  I got out my reciprocating saw and began to hack away.

First, I dug a trench around the tree about a foot deep.  Then I tried to cut across the base of the trunk as deep as possible.  After a couple false starts, I discovered that I couldn't cut clean across, however, because of a protuberance on the back right side.  It took about a fifteen minutes to cut a notch through the bulge (I fortified myself with eggnog during this period), and then I was able to cut straight through half of the stump.

Once I did this, I gave the stump a couple kicks, and the half I had cut through fell off.  After that, I only needed about three minutes to cut through the other half:

Now, I have an empty spot in the side of my yard.  I'd like to put a Chinese red birch (Betula  albo-sinensis var.  septentrionalis) there, after reading about it in Ernest Wilson's book, but I'm afraid I'm planting too many trees in my small yard.  For now, I'll enjoy the emptiness: