The crane showed up at around 6:30 this morning!

All-in all it was a fascinating day of watching the tree service crew and the crane crew move three 17,000 – 20,000 lb. palm trees.  Below are some nice shots.

The process was to attach the crane pulling up and the backhoe pulling to the side, and then gently lower the tree onto its side.  Once on it side, the crew got down in the hole, cut the bottom roots by hand with shovels, and shaped the bottom of the root ball to be flat.  The tree company owner measured the size and depth of the root ball carefully against the size of the hole to make sure it would be at the proper depth.  and lay upright.

Once in place, they would hand pack the first foot or two of dirt to stabilize the tree, move the crane away, and fill the rest with the backhoe.

On Friday they will move the two largest trees with a larger crane and I hope to get the entire things on several mounted video cameras, and produce a time-lapse video of the move.