Meanwhile, back in Salamander's Orchard

Yesterday was low 30s (Fahrenheit) and the wind was about ten miles per hour out of the WNW.

A grafted persimmon tree to be moved.  The graft is about mid-way, and is covered with blackend parafilm.

I got a ton of roots on this one.  We had four inches of rain a few days ago and the tap root pulled up nicely.  I rarely do this well.  You can see feeder roots (laterals) slightly below the words "COMPLETE NUTRITION"

Water in the bottom of the hole.

Two grafted persimmons planted, wrapped with newspaper to armor against rabbits and staked to prevent windwhip and marked with surveyor flags to reduce the risk of death-by-mower.

On to pruning

This is a picture of a real tree with red lines where I intended to prune.  It is difficult to see much so I threw together some simple graphics.

Human is scaled to about six feet tall.

This is the "after" picture.  The tree is still taller than I would like because there were few live branches in the lower part of the canopy.  The ladder is 12' tall.

Pruning old trees puts a lot of wood on the ground.

My estimate of twenty more hours in the orchard was too low.  There are 45 trees in this portion of the orchard and I pruned 9 trees in three hours.  The dragging of the brush will take as long as the trimming of the trees.  That is thirty hours in just the pruning of the trees.  That does not include replanting "holes", mowing, fertilizing and spraying herbicide.

Bonus pictures

Something sparkly caught my eye as I was driving to Salamander's Orchard. 

Ice Bells.

Ice bells occur after a heavy rain followed by very cold nights cause water to freeze on twigs and brush.

Zoomed in a bit closer.