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We begin our story with a long drive from the Bay Area to Mojave, CA. An overnight stay in the area prepares us for the 2 hour drive into the mountains that divide up the various desert sections. The area in which we travel in is south of Death Valley, CA where the surface water is minimal and temperatures can rise into the 100's of degrees during the day. This trip was planned for the Spring after considerable rain had fallen over the area. We set out on our drive at 6AM in the morning when the temperatures are still cool and a light breeze is blowing and drive to the Jawbone Canyon area. We have a special permit to work in the area picked by Mr. California Juniper, Harry Hirao. Our carpool is comprised of Gordon Deeg, Director of the BGLM, Seiji Shiba, past director of the BGLM, Carl Morimoto, Master Yasuo Mitsuya from Japan, Harry Hirao and his digging team and myself.
	The property we are going to work on is a wind farm. The coveted CA Junipers were growing everywhere as small to very large bushy growth with considerable natural deadwood.
Carl Morimoto is working hard on his great find. He is working to separate a segment of the tree shown here.	It is not uncommon to see the skeleton of majestic old trees along the landscape. This one stands surrounded by many smaller and younger trees. It is hard to imagine the 100s of years the tree lived before the harsh environment tooks its toll.
Gordon Deeg and Seiji Sheba have found their prize and have begun to dig out the root ball of the tree. Suficient root ball must be maintained on these trees. It is important to take the fine roots intact. All these thick trunk trees have one or more massive tap roots that must be cut out. The work is not easy.	They continue to dig for over nearly two hours to get this tree out.
Sometime into the dig I wanted to catch up with Master Mitsuya and Harry Hirao for some pictures of their working together. We spotted their orange back backpack discarded on a hillside some distance from where we were digging so I began to make my way in that direction. They were not on the hill with the backpack; rather, they were in the bottom of a ravine contemplating a tree.	Harry Hirao is seen here examining the prize. High on the ravine wall hangs an extremely large example of CA juniper with great deadwood. Harry had been working on digging this tree a year before. Some of the root ball was already isolated.
Harry and Mitsuya ponder the best way to remove this massive tree. Mitsuya was armed with a small saw and Harry with his began cutting way some of the branches that were not needed. Some were deadwood and other were living thin branches. I asked if I could help and joined in the fun with a saw as well. Harry would point at a branch to be cut and off I would go with the saw.	Much to my suprise, Harry climbs the revine wall and begins cutting some major small roots that are holding much of the tree in place. He has me cut the lateral roots and the bottom anchor roots first. Then, suddenly, here comes the tree, tumbling down into the hand of Mitsuya and myself as we move it to the side and bring it to rest at the bottom of the ravine.
	Harry and Mitsuya then begin to work to preserve the required roots by spaying water, gathering plastic around the root ball and tying it all in place. We worked to remove more sections of the tree that would not be needed, trimmed roots that were left too long. Mitsuya went about developing the basic shape of the tree.
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