The Gravenstein Apple... 14' Tall. The roots shot through this soft soil. It was very rich soil. The roots never went very deep so they were easy to pull up. Almost like pulling rope.

Exposing as much of the root system for transplanting. I drag the point of the pick along the ground away from the tree and find the roots. These go Way out.

At this point I feel like I have caught the biggest fish and need to get home. I am wet, cold, and my body aches tremendously at this point. A 1.5 hour drive with blasting heat sounds perfect .

I manage to safely tie in all of my branches and roots. I flag all of the far reaching appendages.

The Dirt Pit and Compost. Here there is a composting bin, compost, mulch, top soil and future projects. Between here and the small yellow barn will all be future raised beds.

Next morning an early planting starts. Notice the root system. I did manage to get all of this tied into the truck.

A King Apple. A prize tree. Thank you Ron!

In less than 2 hours I got this gravenstein apple tree into the ground. Once the tree is in the ground, the compost in, the mulch on top and the first watering with vitamin B1 I feel that the tree has stopped accelerating in stressing out. Now it can go on the road to recovery. At this point I can not express in words what a thrill I get. To walk around this and imagine what it is and what it will be.

The Gravenstein Apple has arrived. 2 years later... Still going strong!

These are complicated loads for the expressway.

The Gravenstein apple and the King Apple were both beasts. Well worth the effort to get them but by myself this is tough work.

Digging the hole for the Gravenstein apple.

Ron helps me finalize root unearthing on the King Apple. This carpet dolly proves to be an valuable tool in moving something this massive. It also helps me take bites bigger than I can chew. I start to tie off branches before the tree hits the ground. This helps handling, maneuvering, loading and tie down much easier.

My neighbor Mike offers the service of his tractor in making a 7' X 10' X 2' deep hole. He then pushed all the dirt in to the hole. This saved me hours of back breaking work. I think I will need a tractor in the future.

I hook up my truck to straighten the tree. For the time being these have a funny shape. The shape of my truck dictates the shape of the tree. I force as much of the salvaged tree onto the truck and once planted I will fine tune the shape.

A Flowering Crab Apple. This is where it was originally planted in memory of someone. It was too close to the house so the owner put it on craigslist as a free tree to someone who would care for it.

The menagerie of trees in my truck as they can be seen going down the road.

Siting the Crab Apple Tree.

The Flowering Crab Apple gets a new home. You can see a lot of the root system is gone but our fair winters are kind to tree root systems here. You must dig the new home at the very least 2X the size of the root ball. Loosen even more soil around and mix compost with the original soil... add root hormone and water well. I mean water so well that you flood the darn thing and the soil settles in around the root ball so that the air goes away.

This Flowering Crab Apple has really nice form to it. - This tree was planted too close to a house. The woman who gave it to me said that she planted it for her brother who was an arborist. I finally had to cut this back and then finally down this year (2012). It just did not make it. The summer months were really hard on it.

Mission Accomplished. This tree was originally planted in Seattle in memory of someone. It outgrew it's original home. I transplanted it here. I like the form to it so much I think I may seek out a few more.

Crab Apple early morning. New apple trees in the background on the left. I always enjoyed the shape of this crab apple. I will miss it.

Okay, so I went and got the real good compost and mulch. What a fun day! I planted 5 trees that day (11/09).

Our compost area.

3 Plums along the Western path to the Well House. July 2012. I noticed about 30 plums on it this Spring and then when the heat hit they dropped most of their fruit. It is really difficult to grow anything in this row. We suspect that the ground here has many tons of rocks under the surface and thus gets too much drainage.

The tree frogs found this water supply in the middle of the drought. I looked in the yellow plug at the top and there were 3 little frogs floating on a stick... I let them out. They looked a little tired.

You get a 1/2 gallon per hour drip with a 20 psi hose. With gravity feed you get an IV drip. I came back 3 weeks later to find the container with barely any water. The leaves were still green. I planted this MacIntosh Apple Tree in late June. It had a remarkable year.

This old pear tree barely hangs on every year. The leafy plant under the bird cage is a Cecil Brunner Rose planted where a large branch broke off of the tree.

This lady called me back to check on the Mountain Ash Tree. She asked if I wanted a Macintosh Apple Tree. Putting a 55 gallon barrel out with 2 - 1/2 gallon drip per hour I figured I had 27 hours of water... 3 1/2 weeks later in July it still had leaves. I transplanted this in late June.... Don't do this.

Braeburn Blossums

Braeburn Apple April 2010. I just transplanted this back in March 2010. With any luck I will get a ton of apples off of this beauty.

My new Water Buffalo. 55 gallons - 440 pounds. Pulled by the truck. I have to work out getting more water pressure in there though. For now it is a gravity feed system.

Gravenstien Apple

Asian Pear

Asian Pear

The site line from the kitchen window.

The old pear tree with the rose planted in the tree. 2012 - this tree finally fell over. It produced a lot of very rich compost in the middle of the trunk. RIP

Pear Tree

July 2012. I put out mason bee homes next to every apple tree this year.

July 2012. 1st year of bees. In the past 3 years of having this tree it has only produced 19 apples. This Spring... over 50 apples on 1 branch. Then the tent worms got to it. I will still probably have about 100 apples this year. Thank you trees, thank you bees.