Will, I have looked at this a few times and really like what you have here. I will echo the other comments wrt to comp, color, and chosen ss.
With regard to the tree branch: Removing it would laborious due to the fine leaf detail surrounding it. I did a ‘scroll crop’ down from the top to eliminate the branch. Doing so gives the image a more pano look and feel, though.
Regarding removing elements from a scene…
I used Content Aware Fill to remove to small elements from a scene since they were distracting. I honestly felt a little conflicted about doing so, On the one hand it improved the image, imo, but on the other, removing those bits were not true to the scene as I witnessed it.
While I don’t have any specific guideline for removing elements, I’ll just say, stay true to yourself.
The image is here: Blue Hour
You image is really nice, and it looks like great country to explore and enjoy.
-P