Only Took 2+ Months

But my back yard is back to normal.  Well, almost - there is still the cable that was installed last Friday which needs to be buried.  But the damage left by the original crew was repaired today.

They were here on time.  They did what they said they would do.  They did a good job and got finished earlier than they thought the would.  They don't actually work for the electric provider, they are a contracted company.  Which may be why they did such a good job!  :)

The dirt was shoveled in by hand, then they smoothed it with rakes.  The filled in all the holes.

 They laid grass strips down.

They planted three new crepe myrtles.

When the left, they took the plywood and shovel that was left by the first crew and they made sure I was able to get the gate shut and locked.

I watered the crepe myrtles, but I had to stop in the middle because Maggie Moo disappeared.  I could not find her anywhere, but I knew she had been in the yard with me and that I didn't let her out of the house until after the gates were locked.  She just vanished.  There is one spot where I thought she could have gotten out of the yard.  I looked everywhere, called her repeatedly and looked everywhere - in the house, the garage, her yard, and I attempted to look under the shed.  After a while, I finally decided that she must have found her way out of the yard.  I started walking and I went pretty much all around the neighborhood - in the sun, without my hat.  I talked to two neighbors and they hadn't seen her.

By this time I was really worried.  I figured that she must be under the shed and the fact that I never heard her when I was yelling for her had me seriously worried.  I went back to the back yard and called her repeatedly, and I looked under the shed again.  Then I started to hear her and  realized that some of the noises I heard earlier was probably her and not just all the screeching birds that were suddenly in the trees by the shed.  I called her again, and I could see movement underneath the shed.  She was trying to get out, but she was pretty well trapped.  I was trying to figure out how to get her out without having the shed shift and crush her, when she finally was able to basically dig her way out.  She was under there for about an hour.  She was very dirty and she was also very scared.  Otter was on her way over to go through boxes when the dog vanished, she got there just after I'd gotten Maggie back in.  Maggie spent most of her afternoon sleeping, a much deeper sleep than her normal napping sleep.

I eventually got back to water the crepes and the new grass.  I took Maggie out with me, and she made a beeline to the shed.  She did not want to listen to me when I told her no, so I put her back in the house.  We thought that we might have had a possum visiting us lately, we've seen some signs of something and Maggie has been tracking something when she goes out there.  I think it may have been under the shed at some point, it may well still be there but I don't know for sure.  They are not aggressive animals, but they will defend themselves if they have to and they can do serious damage to a dog.  Maggie's not going to be allowed out there for a while, I have some plastic edging that we used on the tulip bed and I'm going to put it around the shed similar to the way skirting is done for a mobile home.  Maggie is a full-blood beagle and she's got the instincts of one.

Otter and I had a really nice afternoon, we went to lunch at a local place and then she went through 3 boxes.  She condensed them down to 2 boxes, there's quite a bit that is in the donate pile and some things are now in my craft room.  She's still got three more boxes labeled Craft Stuff and there are two boxes in the closet of the craft room that she needs to look through but they aren't really craft stuff.

One of the things we found in the craft boxes was her Sunglasses.  The ones we never found after she moved, the same ones she thought were gone for good when she was packing.  Apparently, she packed them after all - in a box with craft stuff!

Bill's way of counting pachinko balls:

He made this tray, it's marked in measured places and he can tell without having to count each individual ball.

He ordered 5,000 and they came today.  I'm not sure how much they weighed, but it was a lot.  A LOT.

Except for when Otter came and got me and we went to lunch, I've been home all day.  Except for Maggie's little adventure in the middle of the day, I enjoyed it.  I made a loaf of bread in the bread machine and a pot of pinto beans.  I did manage to get a little crochet done, but not until around 6:00 p.m.