I know. I know.

I've said this a thousand times before, but the right tool for the job makes it so much easier!

The guys from the Solar company trenched our power line this past week and it was impressive to watch their tool dig the hole.

We actually managed to do it on the only day this year where the ground was frozen, so they made very little mess while they were doing it.

There was a tense moment or two when they were trenching over our Central Boiler lines, but no water spurted out and we still have heat so it seems that everything went well.

We have to hook up the power to the meter (and the road) and assemble the panels on the support structure and then we have to get contracts and inspections and approvals. Whew.

We're hoping to have a bunch more news by this time next week.

In other news I've managed to put together a Walking Desk. Steelcase sells a desk that has a treadmill built into it for just over $5000. I built mine for $217 including tax. Ha!

I've been using it for two days now and have about 12km put in. I weighed about 90kg when I started this and I'm hoping to drop half a kilo a week until I've reached about 80kg. Then I get to eat more.

Maybe I'll join you and have a plate of Sherry's Big Country Breakfast the next time you're here. I know it's Bound to Please!

You should never mess with another man's artwork.

At least not while he's still around and can see what you've done.

Marvin was here (not the Martian, the Mason) this past week to set the mast of our solar project into a big block of concrete. And I mean a BIG block of concrete.

He spent a lot of time smoothing the top of the block with his trowel and it really did look like a piece of artwork.

Then I scratched my name into it.

When Marvin returned he sort of scowled at me and asked if those were my initials in his concrete. I confessed.

That's when he told me there was a $300 fine for defacing his work. Payable in cash. Right now.

Fortunately that's when his boss, Jason, smiled. Whew.

Sherry came around the corner and I repeated the good bits of Marvin's schpiel and she looked as shocked as I had felt and said "Really!?!". No, not really. Whew.

The mast is impressive and they delivered the rigging that will go up sometime next week or perhaps the week after. The concrete needs to be completely cured before they can risk putting that much weight that high.

They'll be trenching tomorrow, but that's not really exciting stuff. We'll just have to hope that they don't hit the ThermoPex lines for the Central Boiler – we did show them exactly where they are…

The solar project has started!

We've been working toward that goal for almost a year (since March of last year).

Now we've broken ground and grounded our back-hoe. That was a mess.

The ground here actually never froze this winter – I mean we're in the first week of February, if the ground is going to be frozen now's the time.

The first try at getting to the location of the installation the backhoe guy (From here on in we'll call him 'Rick'. Well, actually his name is Rick…) well, he went for the low ground and that was a 'bad idea'.

Then he did it again using the high ground and that worked out. For a while. Then he managed to grind the dirt into soup. It was messy and gooey.

Then he hit water and the soup turned runny and messy and gooey. It was pretty gross.

So at the end of the day yesterday we had three quarters of a hole filled with gravel.

Today they managed to finish the hole and double the amount of soup we had. Oh, my – what a mess!

Jason assures me that he'll restore the ground and make it look good as new.

Right now that doesn't look easy… but I'm sure he's done this before.

More news later!