Thanks guys on the vid. Yes, it's the priest of the temple there offering prayers. I like when they have a little ceremony, it feels kind of right, also because often a cup of sake for everyone goes along with it, and it's a nice pepper upper on cold mornings. We run into that pretty regular with old trees, somebody feels obliged to thank the Gods and ask for things to go safely. It can't hurt.
Sometimes it's more simplified, some salt and sake gets poured on to get things lined up right, nobody says anything out loud. Temple and shrine trees are pretty highly regarded, they normally won't get cut except for special circumstances.
Apparently the priest is having the log milled into some very thick slabs, dry it a bit that way then possibly have it resawn if he comes up with a specific purpose for the wood. I mentioned a large table is a possibility, but that species of Pine usually has a lot of pitch. With the beetle damage drying it out however, it seemed much less so, just might be useful for something I could make. I can check it out and see how it is drying, maybe bend the priest's ear a bit. The outer grain over the last hundred plus years or so was very tight, nice if something useful could be made with it.
Brendon, I might have a photo of the crane folded up, or can post an example. I'll look for one. Pretty typical here to see them running around in the morning. Mostly construction tasks like timber frame raising, but the four or five companies around usually have an operator skilled with trees. The crane there is an independent owner, and the vast majority of his work is trees, highly unusual.
