Blogfinger

Photos and text by Paul Goldfinger

A little horse-chestnut tree lived in a tree nursery. It was sad because it was crowded, there wasn’t much sunshine, and there were no other horse-chestnut trees. It was May, and its flowers were beginning to grow.

The little tree lived here. You can see its pink flowers.

A grandma named Amy, who lives across from Fireman’s Park in Ocean Grove, wished that she could sit on her porch and see a tree with pretty flowers growing in the park. Grandma Amy bought the little tree. Some men from the nursery dug all around and under the large ball of dirt where the roots are. It didn’t hurt the tree at all.

Then some strong men from the Neptune Township Public Works Department gently placed the tree on a truck driven by Mr. Benny Acevedo (on the left, below) who took it to the Grove. It was a cool sunny Wednesday morning when they arrived at Fireman’s Park.

The tree’s  root ball  is heavy— getting ready to move it.

Grandma Amy sat on her porch and watched the workers dig a big hole in the ground across from her house. Then they brought a yellow backhoe to lift the tree from the truck. Mr. Cleatus Ford was the backhoe driver and he carefully lifted the little tree next to the hole.

Moving the tree from the truck onto the backhoe….very cautiously.

Then Mr. George Reid  and Mr. Darby Brooks  moved the root ball into the hole. They made sure that the little tree was nice and straight.

Moving the tree into the hole.

Then they put extra dirt into the hole, and now the tree was ready to start growing in its new home.

New home in the park

When the workers from the Neptune Department of Public Works were done, they posed for a photograph. They all were wearing their bright chartreuse shirts except for Benny, who wore his orange shirt.

DPW crew: (L to R) John Ellis, Darby Brooks, George Reid, Benny Acevedo, and Cleatus Ford. They did good work and they were proud of it.

Grandma Amy was happy, and so was the little horse-chestnut tree which now can enjoy  lots of sky and sunshine.

Grandma Amy, happy on her porch

Soon, some children came to the park from the Care on the Square School in Asbury Park, near Wesley Lake. They like to walk into the Grove every day with their teachers and visit the park.

Kids from Asbury visit the park in Ocean Grove every day.

On this day they were excited to meet the new tree, and they all gathered around to hear the story of its arrival.

Kids gather around to meet the little horse-chestnut tree at its new home in Fireman’s Park

Soon many other children will visit the little horse chestnut tree. It has lots of pink flowers now, and you can see it near the corner of Mt. Hermon Way and New Jersey Avenue. It has a white plastic wrap on the bottom to protect it from the lawn mowers. A neighbor, Auntie Joyce, gives it water every day until it gets used to its new home.

The little tree is happy now. It gets to see lots of kids, dogs, birds, and adults. And, across the park, is a larger horse-chestnut tree, so the little tree can see what it will look like when it gets bigger.

This is the bigger horse-chestnut tree on the other side of Fireman’s park. You can visit that one too, and there is a strong cherry tree there that you can climb on.