So as of this evening the dogs are no longer in their temporary exile on the east side of the house. This will likely be a permanent change.

Friday afternoon I rented a trencher and made the trench for the electrical conduit to run between the house and the west side dog yard. The entire purpose of this is so that the dogs can have a heated water bowl during the cold months and still stay on the west side of the house. Previous years they’ve had to stay on the east side of the house (where there was power for their heated dish).

So I did the trenching quick (only took about 20 minutes to unload, change, trench and load), which was good since it’s a rental by the hour. 🙂 I returned the unit and came home to finish the hand digging (next to and up to the house where the electrical line is buried and where the trencher could not reach, also in the yard where the telephone cable is buried). That sucked, but not nearly like digging the entire 40 feet by hand. That would have been worse.

I placed and buried all of the conduit between the disconnect for the air conditioner and the open end in the dog yard. The disconnect for the air conditioner is just being used (for this project) as an enclosure/junction box for another wire. Seeing as how it gets pretty good and dark by 5:30PM, I didn’t get much else done yesterday evening.

Besides, Erik and Jill were over for supper, so as much as I might have normally grabbed my work floodlight to keep going, I quit shortly after dark. And Erik came by shortly after I finished, so it all worked out well. We had a good time last night and ended up playing cards for a while, which is something I’ve not done for some time. Gotta be a few months at least.

Anyway, after it warmed up a bit today, I went back outside to get this project done. I dug a post hole good enough for what I needed, broke out the chainsaw to cut the post to the desired length, set it, poured in some concrete mix, and went back to work.

Long story short, I installed the box on the pole, pulled wire, installed outlets and box covers (I put two electric boxes on this run — one on the outside of the house, the other on the pole in the yard), and tested it out. Of course with success. 🙂 Which is a Good Thing.

So I moved the dogs back to their normal areas. They seemed happy to be back in their normal territory. And I’m happy to have them back in their normal territory as well. I don’t care as much if they dig up the yard on that side of the house…and that’s what they like to do.

So I have a few holes to fill in on the east side of the house again, but that’ll be alright. Tomorrow’s project, maybe. I’m going to try to get everything winterized and put away tomorrow, which means a major clean-out of the shed. Not necessarily looking forward to that, but it shouldn’t be too bad. Worst part is just figuring out where everything should go to maximize the utilization of space.

That’s more or less how my last two days have gone. Been pretty productive in a way — it’s really good to have that dog yard project done. Now if I can just get the basement cleaned up a bit. Eesh.

Ah well, it could be worse. We’ll see how it goes. Until next time…

“Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”
– Auric Goldfinger, in “Goldfinger” by Ian L. Fleming (1908-1964)

–MZ