Something Big

It's been about a month ago now, we had a visit from the local electric company. They were concerned that we had two white ash trees in "their" border zone of the high tension lines that run behind our property. This are is an easement and although they do allow plants in this area, large trees are another story.

Our concern was the weather. It's been entirely to warm this winter and the ground hasn't frozen which is what is needed for the equipment to be on the property with the least amount of damage. I asked for an extension if I needed it to get these trees moved. PPL agreed since they were in the border zone and young trees.

Today the tree movers we hired came to move the trees. The 10 ton tree spade was huge!

Brian got the tree spade into position and double checked everything before actually digging the whole that one of the trees will occupy.

When he was finished, the hole was 5 feet wide by 5 feet deep.

After digging the first tree ( the smallest one), he stops and measures the size of the plug (dirt and tree) to make sure it is the same size as the hole he dug to fit it into. With this smaller tree, it will never even know that it's been moved! There were absolutely no roots cut with this one as the spade is much larger than necessary for the 3½" diameter ash.

The larger 10" diameter tree was much more the size for this tree spade, but only a few roots were cut with it. This tree should be able to snap back quickly as well. In the above shot, Brian is placing the larger tree plug into the hole he had dug for it earlier.

I did get a charge out of the little Black-Capped Chickadees who all sat in the beech tree watching as we moved these trees. They were very curious and very unafraid. They made me laugh.

It was really a beautiful day for all this work to get done. My day started at 7am when I was outside digging up plants that I didn't want hurt or ruined by this spade. Husband joined me around 9am and we were able to get all the plants out of the way and are now shoed into the garden for a few days until we have a chance to establish the four holes and plugs that are now in the yard and make a nice place for them to be permanently.

The rest of the week is to be wet chilly weather. This will be great for the two trees and all the ruts that were put into the yard with this huge piece of machinery. It will water in and set the trees and prepare the other plugs for the plants we want to put in them.