Day 1 - Driveway and leaves

Since we closed on the house at 4pm, I thought it would be good to do SOMETHING… ANYTHING… so that we could say we started!

There is no power yet, the service was cut off at the pole years ago. A new transformer has to be installed at the pole. Before that transformer can go in, a lot has to happen!

An electrical inspector came out and failed the inspection, which we totally expected. He was super nice and provided me with a list of what must be done and how to accomplish it. I had to call the electric company and start an account, and he called them to sign in on it. Once the necessary fixes are done, he, and only he, will return to do a final inspection. Seems there were people who had an inspection, failed, and then called a different inspector and paid them off. Nice. Once that inspection is complete the electrical inspector will sign off and then service can be restored.

The fence coming up the north side is just overgrown with trees, big trees. The electric company will send an engineer who will determine that yes, they are big and must be chopped off. Then the engineer will report to the electric company that it must be done. The electric company will subcontract a tree company who will send someone out to check out the job. That person will report to the electric company that they are able to chop off said trees. Then they'll hire the company to do the job. The company will chop the trees and let the electric company know when the job is complete. THEN the electric company will run the main electric wire into our service.

Meanwhile, Mark will work with his electrician friends to put in a new service. Mark has already installed the new panel box.

After all of that THEN we will have power!!

So if the trees must be chopped, then once they are laying all over the backyard it would be impossible to rake the vast amount of leaves that have accumulated over the last ten, maybe a dozen years. It's obvious no one has done anything in a long time. It wouldn't show from the road and I think everyone was thinking it was something that didn't matter. But I envisioned the kids trying to rake leaves while climbing over downed trees and branches. Seemed like it was time to prioritize. So raking the leaves from the north fence became job number one.

We grabbed rakes and leaf bags… we had 50. Raked the driveway, the north fence in the back and the south fence in the front cuz it ran all along the driveway. Grass will grow once the leaves are gone. There were so many leaves between the Florida room and the garage that they were three feet deep. I was impressed that the kids were working so hard. They were stunned that MOM could rake leaves! Apparently there is an impression of me that is vastly incorrect! I out-worked them. They worked faster! Not going to be out-done by MOM! No way.

Here are pictures from that first evening.

I'll upload when I get the damn onedrive to sync