Summer was flying-by. The guy who was going to pour the basement floor, originally said he would be out sometime in June to do it. Well June became July and the floor was still dirt. We couldn’t complain, he is someone we know who does this kind of work on the side, and we know all to well how life can get in the way of plans and best intentions.

While we waited for the basement floor we got some other things done, like changing the garage plans (see A woman’s prerogative . . . ). Something else, no matter what the garage final layout was that the yard light would have to be moved. The old electric pole where the yard light was mounted sits inside the footprint of the future garage (we are NOT going to pull a real life Green Acres). We weren’t going to tackle the pole itself, but the light was do-able. This is the same light that mysteriously worked even though there was no neutral wire connected back to the new underground electric service.

As you can see in the second photo above, the light is just below a grouping of insulators on the left side. Brad shimmied up the ladder (no pictures, I was holding the ladder), and removed the light. It still worked so he took the whole fixture down. The question was, where to put it?

The choices were on the west side of the barn or the south side of the granary. Brad’s vote was for the west side of the barn because he doesn’t want light flooding into the house, and didn’t want too much light flooding the yard. My vote was to put it on the granary (which having grown up in the country where there are no street lights is the entire point of a yard light). My rational was especially when snow blowing to be able to see up to the house better since the days are so short and our old snow blower operator is headed to college & the job will most likely fall to Brad (I prefer to operate the shovel and be support).

I may have to fight for the light on the granary in the future, but for now, I won! (I also think it looks cute there.)

It of course is not as simple as just slapping the light up on the side of the building. This building, while it did have power, had minimal lights and outlets. There was more work ahead to make the night light up, and multiple trips up and down the ladder.

While Brad was busy being an electrician, I worked on some of the trenches that had settled. The trenches make for a very rough (and unnerving) ride while mowing lawn. We didn’t have quite enough dirt laying around to fill all the settled trenches, but these by the panel were by far the worst. The stakes are where Brad wanted me to stop filling to so he could easily see where the lines are when we run underground power to the future garage.

Some of the depressions were deep enough to mess up someone’s ankle of knee if they stepped into it unaware. The section that I left open we covered with plywood to avoid accidents. I purposefully took this picture to show how much spots had settled, red clay compacts – a lot! Last fall I had stepped into one (unaware) that was filled with leaves. I had a sore knee for months afterward, I was going to be sure to not have a repeat.

After several trips up and down the ladder Brad finished up the light. The question was, did it survive all the jiggling around.

Knowing that in the near future a cement truck would be coming Brad trimmed an out of place branch from the apple tree that hung in the driving path, and I cut down a flower bed that would get crushed anyhow. (It also needed to be cut down for fall which wasn’t that far off anymore.)

It had been a full day. The last thing to do was come back in the dark and see if Brad’s handiwork worked.

No surprises here. Good job done!