holy batman! I just bought a farm!!

[smilingcat]

Things sometimes go BUMP.

Upgrading the electrical on the farm. That means running over 300feet (100meter) of 220V 100amp circuit to the barn and to the free standing garage/carport/tack room. My electrician had contacted all the pertinent companies, power, natural gas (amazing natural gas pipe for the farm instead of propane), water (wow city water too!!), electrical, telephone and cable (OMG!! even a cable. must be in the city!!) to spray paint and mark out where they are burried. So I see colored lines on the ground. Looks good.

But in process of trenching to lay the power, we almost had an accident. There is already 120V 20amp circuit going to the freestanding gararge and the barn. They were digging and I asked the workers if the circuit was shut off. OOPS. Took us a while to figure out which circuit breaker needed to be turned off. All was good. They did cut into the 120V20amp circuit later in the day with the powered trencher.

That wasn't too bad.

Further trenching and they managed to slice through the water line feeding one of many spigots on the farm. Shut the main valve in the house and we still have a geyser. Water company says go to the street and you will find the meter and you can shut it off there. but which one? there are three meters there. The one where the meter is running wild. Oh... Then I remembered, I have burried all over on the property a shut off valve for the spigots in the field. Where are they?? Mostly marked with 4 to 6 inch black round steel plate. Under it down two feet is the valve. Its freezing outside!! Running all over the field looking for the darn thing. I knew where two of them were but they are not IT. Water is still gushing. run around the house looking for it and one of the electrician found a broken slab of concrete perched bit above the ground. Under it was a pipe and at a bottom was a shut off valve. Good thing he had an arm like an Orangatan. I couldn't reach it. He shut it off and geyser stopped. Trench is partially filled with water. Geez I wonder what my water bill is going to look like?

Water line was bad enough...

I did say that the property has natural gas service didn't I?

There are two gas lines!? Oh oh... One was marked. Who would ever guessed that there was a second one. I was away from the farm and when I returned there is a natural gas company truck there. not a good sign. Don't anyone smoke!! A plumber showed up shortly there after and the gas company guy and the plumber made a partial fix so that the house would have gas for the water heater and central heating. But I've got no gas into the greenhouse. Greenhouse is not setup with solar heating yet and I've got pepper plants and ginger and other warm/heat loving plants that will die in the cold. The strong artic storm brought ice and extreme cold to my area so I really need to have the heat in the greenhouse. Not happening.

So I carried about 50 big pots maybe more into the warm house and found a place for them. Talk about a work out.

Today the plumber came out on Saturday morning first thing and patched up the natural gas pipe. It's a yellow plastic pipe of all things. Gas is back in the greenhouse. And I moved all the plants back into the greenhouse. Looked at the temperature record and the greenhouse temperature had dropped to 18F (-8C) last night.

Electricians are going to dig the rest of the trench manually with shovel. Electricians are having to pay for the plumber and the gas company for their service. I feel bad for them even though they broke it. I want them to make money too.

Tomorrow, setting up the germination table in the solarium that is attached to the house. Already have 600 seedlings started and they have germinated. My home made soil blocker worked pretty well. Each time I can pop out 50 seeded soil blocks.

People I know says that I look happy. I'm not so sure.