June 12 – “Leaning Tower of Power update”

Well, they have officially replaced the leaning tower of power in our backyard.  The electrical pole with a generator and everything on it has been teetering precariously for months now.  And that’s after a repair man came out and “officially” declared that it had rotted through and even snapped beneath the ground.  At that time they put in a temporary fix, but the whole thing was still leaning.  If I was any good at geometry I would estimate a degree of the angle, but … I’m not.  Suffice it to say that the electrical cable coming to our house was under a great deal of strain.  The cable TV cable had already pulled away from its connector.  The telephone cable was doing OK, but I’m sure it would have made quite a mess if it had torn loose.  I like seeing the guys at the fire department, but not so much for a fire at my house.

But all that is in the past.  Some company out of Houston came by and did the deed.  And quite the ordeal it was.  They had to dig the hole for the new pole.  Which, by the way, they put in the vacant lot instead of our yard.  WooHoo.  The new pole then set, they had to do the transfer of all the paraphernalia.  That’s where they turned off all the electricity.  It was supposed to be for an hour or so.  I think it was out for closer to two.  During all the preparatory hoopla, Chris went for her walk and Mom decided to go back to bed.  Normally that’s a no-no.  If she sleeps too much during the day, then she is guaranteed to be up all night.  In this case, though, I decided to let her.  Maybe it would be better if she was sleeping when it got hot in the house.  She slept until 12:30.  Strangely enough, though, she slept all night last night.  I can’t remember when she last did that. 

Back to the installation.  The pole was set in the vacant lot, but we still have the tie down cables (or whatever they call them) in Chris’ back flower bed.  To their credit, the guys didn’t really mess up any of the plants.  The even used a bungee cord to hold up the wisteria vine out of their way.  They also added covers for the cables.  Yellow covers.  Bright yellow covers.  More color for the flower bed, I guess. But I’ll take that trade-off any day.  At least I don’t have to mow around them like I used to do with the pole.  Oh, and the one other thing they did for us.  There was some kind of bush in the corner on the vacant lot side that was a real pain to keep trimmed.  It is no longer a problem.  It is no longer there.  Ripped it right out with their hole digger.  Thanks, guys.  Now my only task is to retrim the tree in the vacant lot.  With the new pole location, two of the cables now run right through some of the upper branches.  That’ll be a challenge for sure.  But who doesn’t like a challenge?

Psalms 95:1 says, “Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.”

Father, we sure felt like shouting aloud when they got that pole fixed.  Sure glad it got done before we got too far into hurricane season.  Bless and keep safe those guys who did the work.  They were really nice to deal with.  Amen.