OK....back now..
Thursday Dec. first, Fresno county has a record wind storm. Wind from the sierra's swoops in at over 150 miles an hour and finally reaches the valley with gusts up to 60 miles an hour. While this is nothing for some places in the USA, this is something for the central valley who sees maybe 5 miles an hour at most. with me being in the emergency business, lets just say that I been busy. I was on call the week following the storm and worked overtime every day since. I was in need of a break. I caught a break last weekend after the storm long enough to sell at the swapmeet and buy the maple tree. A guy there selling had a large trident and said he had more in the field. He would be having a grape dig at his house and that I should come out and see what he had.
I did. (for a while at least)
He took me to the area he had the tridents, A small modest area about 20x20 feet in area. In here he had twisted poms, elms, ume, pines and tridents. Mnay of you know treekutter as he posts here once and a while. This is the story of one of his trees he grew out.
I started by sizing up the one I chose. Pretty beefy and the largest of the group. He has a really nice one that he is developing for shohin, but it wasn't for sale. (I'll work on that, hehehe). The tree has a pretty large trunk, about 4 inches across at the base. The root spread I could see after uncovering it was about 6 inches across. The tree stood about 30 inches tall. I started by cutting it down to 20 inches.