Our First Potential Bonsai-to-be

So today Dani and I were walking through the forest on our property, when we stumbled upon our first potential bonsai, which we believe to be a maple of some description, as the trees close to it would have to have sent out winged seeds in order for them to reach that far away from the mother trees, here's a picture of one of the the mother trees' leaves:



And here is a picture of the trunk of the mother tree, roughly a foot and a bit wide:



So yeah this is the expected mother of this little thing, which looks like it has had a hard life in it's short time, only probably a couple of years young:



It had a strong vertical (?) root pointing straigt down:

That we removed to hopefully promote more lateral growth, suited to bonsai pots in the future. We then put it in a trimmed down plastic pot of roughly 1 foot wide (30 cm) and 9 cm (3 1/2 inches) deep, the root ball undisturbed in a soil clump:



And then covered  (with a little in the base) with about equal parts of well fertilized soil from the vegetable garden and seed-raising mix, which should make an alright mix, as we had limited things on hand. Finished product:





Trust us, it was well watered afterwards, especially in the summer heat. To what comes next, we aren't sure, but after much research today we discovered to achieve the trunk thickness we desire, we may have to plant it in full sun in the ground or in a training pot of some description. plans to train it to become somewhat upright are in the future if possible, we really are complete beginners here. Updates to come!