On to the task at hand. Here's the background:
Jenny and I really like these camellias and, based on a conversation we had with the ladies from the Camellia Society (ha ha, we're old), we believe that ours are particularly large and special. We were told that the way to go about moving them was to root prune (stick a shovel a foot in the ground all the way around them) in late spring and then transplant in October/November. The reason that we wanted to move them was so we could open up the area outside of our back door and eventually put in a deck or patio.
Jenny spoke with one of her coworkers who tends to own some random pieces of equipment and he said that while he did not own one, he was planning to rent one to do some work on his property. He told Jenny that he would be more than happy to bring it over to our house to help us out.
December rolled around and he has not gotten around to his project, but we really needed to do this now to avoid waiting another year. Our December calender has gotten pretty full by this point so we need to do it this weekend. I spoke to Nathan on Friday night and asked if he would be able to help. He said he could, so I spent Saturday morning pricing compact or mini excavators.
Lo and behold no equipment rental outfits are open on Saturday. AAA Rentall had one, but it was $195 for the day (Saturday afternoon until 9 AM Sunday morning) and they charge $50 to rent a trailer to haul it on. My experience with AAA is that they have a large selection of equipment in rough shape. Having seen the excavator they rent on a previous occasion, I sought other viable options. I called a place, Volvo Rents, in Geismar. I only called because their web page listed their hours as 7-5 with no days listed. I call and the number transfers to a cell phone. Not wanting to bother someone with my small job on their day off, I hung up without leaving a message. Long story short, the lady on call returned my call, opened up the place for me, and rented me a much, much nicer excavator with trailer for around $200. I will call them first next time.
Nathan and I tried to get some work done yesterday, but it kept raining and we didn't get much done. We started fresh this morning around 9. It probably took us about 2 hours (maybe longer) to transplant the first one. We didn't really know what we were doing and that was part of the problem. I think we transplanted the second one in about 30 minutes. The third one was the largest and by far heaviest of the group. It probably took as much effort to dig it up as it did to get it standing up straight in its new home. That kind of sucked. A lot.
Nathan did a fantastic job and was an invaluable help. I will probably buy him a thank you gift for this one. He is much better at operating equipment than I am, though I did a lot better than I thought I would. When my back wore out, he did the manual labor and let me work the machine. God bless him for that. For the record, there was little to no swearing and we never fought with each other. We make a really could pair for projects like this, sometimes.
I don't know when I will post again as we are still trying to save up for the kitchen. Hopefully that project will start soon. I hope to post several times as the project gets underway. I hope you enjoyed this post and MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Check out the Picasa album as there are a few pictures.
