birds, trees, and electricity

Birds -- the thrush -- a thrush; any thrush -- is back and all is well with the world again. We had a blue jay who made a nest at about 5 feet off the ground and the couple was hanging out all April. Now they're gone and we don't know if it's to raise their fledglings or an evil cat got them. It's really wicked noisy out there these mornings, and the light is so bright so early I've been waking up at 5, 5:30.

Trees -- a week ago we could still see well into the forest. Now, nothing. There's a wall of green that starts at the end of our yard behind the kitchen. It was even denser and greener tonight than it was on Friday morning -- We were in NYC all weekend and came back late last night. More about that in a minute.

Dave was learning to split the pear chunks he'd taken down a few weeks ago. And we are down a couple of hemlocks in the front yard because we came home a couple of rainy Saturday afternoons ago (first Saturday in May, it was) all excited to watch a family movie with popcorn and we didn't have half our electric, including our heat. The house was still in the 60s so it was fine, and of course we turned up the pellet stoves to take the edge off.

It seems your house, or at least my house, has at least two legs of electric coming in from the street. Today it has to be encased in conduit but not 30 years ago, when this place was built. One of the legs deteriorated, natch, and we faced the prospect of a backhoe in our front yard and them having to cut across our driveway, which the electric crosses on its way to the box on the street.

Long story short, we had half electric from Saturday afternoon through Tuesday morning and ended up with about 10 guys at the place on Tuesday, Dave said: the electrician we hired, Dig Save, who was marking up the yard with all our buried stuff, the backhoe guy, the National Grid guy, and who knows who else. The backhoe made its way across the lawn to the edge of the house, taking out the smallish (and diseased) hemlocks on the way, dug for about three feet, and found the break. The National Grid guy came back to check up on stuff even though he didn't have to, took one look and said, I'll fix that, even though he's not supposed to, and it was all over in a matter of minutes.

The wife (that would be me) got a little anxious that this cable just buried in the ground without its conduit will just rot again, and shouldn't they just finish the job? And everyone agree not to bother, bury it all up now and if it breaks again they'll come back. What do I know.

At any rate we have electric now. And a good story, and Dave had a lot of fun with all the guys. It was a bash -- party at the new guy's house! Everyone piled on.