An Amazing Project

The big root ball
Originally uploaded by Darrell

I am told, and I've asked the question at least six times, that this tree weighs about 70 tons. 140,000 pounds. That's incomprehensible to me, but the man who moves giant trees says he knows his business. There's a computer scale on the crane that lifted it from the ground, and it confirmed the estimate was close.
This tree and many of its leafy brethren line a road in southeast Shreveport. The road is being widened and the trees are being relocated....about thirty feet to the west.
It's a painstaking process and mesmerizing to watch. For two weeks, crews of men have been carefully digging around the bases of these oak trees, preserving as much of the root structure as possible. An underground irrigation and drainage system is being installed to keep them alive once they're transplanted.
I asked the man in charge when we will know if the trees will survive the big uprooting. He said we already know. They've been dug up for a couple of weeks and have shown no signs of transplant shock. The actual move, he said, will have virtually no impact on them.
They're on the go, now watch them grow.
Here is the tree just before the crane yanked it out of its home of 26 years.

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