Oops!

We had quite the entertainment out the front window this week.  There has been a crew in our neighborhood laying new fiber optic cable for the high school and middle school with a ditch witch.  On Sunday they made it to our house.  We found out later that the line was supposed to go down the alley, and they never should have actually gone through our yard.  However, that's exactly what the "yahoos from Kentucky" did while we were at church. 

Austin was not a happy camper!

They suddenly packed up and disappeared after lunch.  Then slowly more trucks and guys started appearing.  By 3:00pm there were at least eight guys from six different companies/utilities having a big powwow in our yard.  You could just see the overtime hours ticking by.  It turns out the fiber optic crew had managed to hit a line that ran along our property border and cut off all communication to the hospital across the street.  Oops!  The result: an emergency trenching crew was called in to cut up a chunk of our sidewalk as well as a large chunk of the relatively new driveway approach to the alley. They dug a hole at least four feet deep.  Then some utility guys sat in the hole for almost two hours with spotlights patching the communication lines.  The next day the trenching crew came back to fill in the hole and another crew poured new cement.

Pulling up a section of the driveway approach

Just hanging out, digging a hole on a Sunday afternoon

By Thursday, the original fiber optic crew was back to dig another hole in our yard in the same place to connect and bury the two large orange tubes sticking out of our lawn.  I think they filled the hole back in pretty decent and covered it with straw, but they also managed to put a big nick in a tree branch with the mini excavator they were using.  I guess we'll try to grow some grass in the spring. :op