Did more research on various tree possibilities and wanted to be ready for when we get them.

At 6 pm I started digging near where the olive used to be. At one point I positioned the spade upright as if it were a trunk and went back inside and sat down and looked over: yes, that will block the view of the neighbors’ windows just right, I don’t have to redo. That one’s the project I most want done.

Despite the amount of old decorative gravel needing lifting away it had gone fairly easily, and so as long as I was being ambitious I started in on the next spot. I wasn’t planning as big a hole this time, just enough to get something in there and let it take over from there. (Read: there was a lot less organic material and a lot more packed clay in the second area–it was a lot harder to get through and no matter how much I enjoy working in the dirt, I was tiring fast. Lots more rocks, lots more clipping away of old roots, too. Maybe I could do enough tomorrow to add soil amendments.)

Now when the stump grinder guy was here a few days ago, he found a black plastic water line that my husband had put in years ago. He was afraid of hitting it and for him to continue he needed me to write and sign a note absolving him of all responsibility should it go off. That was certainly reasonable and I did so. Worst case would be having to turn off the water to the house till Richard got home–I wanted those stumps gone and I wanted to be able to replant.

No problem, there was no breach, and when I went out later I found it pulled up out of the ground from here to here and tossed towards the fence and out of the guy’s way.

So I knew where it was.

I didn’t know there were two.

And yes, I hit it. There was a sudden small but intense geyser that just missed my $8888/pair hearing aids. What I still didn’t know was that there was a live electric wire just past that line well under that dirt and that I was lucky not to have severed that too, much less touched the water and electric together. Yow.

They had been run underground there by the guy whose house we bought 28 years ago. Power to the decades-unused/unworking-I-think timer box that I simply never notice (box? What box? Ooooh. That explains it.)

Richard’s take on it was that the guy seemed to have used probably the cheapest material he could and finding a match was going to be interesting. We were able to turn off the outside water to that side of the yard and that did shut it off.

Well, I can plant in the one spot for now….

That first hole better be big enough for whatever roots come home because I now know what runs past there. Digging that deep through that clay the entire length of that pipe to pull it out, with that power line–nope, not me.

But I’ve been marveling ever since: so *that’s* why I made that first hole so far forward from the fence. Who knew.