The frond-artists have gathered. Spathe surgeons, strop your scalpels. Begin.

When I was a kid, I spent a great deal of time each summer watching the activities down the hill from our house at the Castile-Location Mine.  My brother, Wayne, and friend, Bill, and I would coast our bikes to the bottom and watch the ore cars come out of the hoist and move along the tracks to the end where they dumped, the steam shovel loading dump trucks from the constantly replenished pile, and the bulldozers cleaning up the area when the overspill from the trucks became a hazard.

Now I'm nearly 74, living in a retirement village in New Zealand, and I find I still like to watch other people work. 

Today, the Bark tree trimmers arrived. I don't know if you'll be fascinated with the following, but I plan to show you pictures, with a bit of commentary added, that I took during their efforts here today.   

The trees really look nice now.  I'll show you how they turned out later.  Almost makes me feel as though I too had just had a nice haircut and no longer feel shaggy.  (Well, as a matter of fact, I did, and do) 

Here they are, just getting started. I caught a frond in mid-fall.  

Bark is the company that also provides three full-time gardeners for our village. It's a huge job keeping this place looking so good all the time.  

Here's a shot of some action from our balcony.

And another, even closer to us. 

It wasn't long before they had a pile of tree parts ready for chipping. 

This guy is holding some spathes, which are the sheathing bracts that hold the flower cluster of the palms. They are woody, and about 1/2 inch thick.  Quite heavy. You wouldn't want to get hit by one falling from the tree. 

These are the seed clusters that split the spathe to emerge.   

When they first break free, they are covered in flowers, and the bees go absolutely nuts for them. I think that is one of the reasons the honey made by the bees hived in our gardens have such a wonderful, unique flavor. It has a high percentage of palm flower nectar added to that of an assortment of other flowers and banana blossoms as well.  

I have to put in an action shot for you of the grinding process because I think I would have wanted to feed some fronds into the chipper when I was ten.  I think Wayne, Bill and I would have all wanted to be the chipper-guy, after of course, we were the bucket-guy.  

The before and after view.  Bark did a great job. 

August 8, 2025 above and August 25, 2025 below.  

Next time they come I'm going to bribe them to give me a ride in the bucket. I'm thinking a dozen Krispy Kremes. Think it'll work?    -djf