Through the remainder of the week, and into November, I dug about 10’ of ditch at a time and installed another 10’ length of conduit. With the installation of each one, I completed the section by backfilling the ditch and replacing the sod. This gave me a sense of accomplishment and prodded me onward.

The section adjacent the big tree was a real challenge because of roots. I pressed on and eventually reached the northwest corner of the house. At that point I turned up, installed a vertical section of conduit, penetrated the rock façade, and pushed a joint of conduit across the bunk room ceiling to a point directly above the main breaker panel. Then I bracketed the riser to the rock wall, caulked the penetration, and cleared the yard of tools—the first and hardest part of the project behind me.

I found the lawn sprinkler pipe five times, but only broke it twice.

Driven by my hard bought success, I immediately executed the next step in getting our new power line to the boat house. Unable to find a “mouse” at the store, I made one. I cut a large round panel from a plastic shopping bag. Then I cut a second bag into narrow strips, wadded them inside the panel, gathered it all up, and taped it to the end of a pull string. I stuffed the “mouse” into one end of the conduit and drew it, string following, through the entire run of pipe with our shop vac.

I secured one end of the string to a nail that was placed to simulate the final location of the breaker panel. I pulled the other end snug (and to its final destination) and tied a knot in it.

I tied the pull string to the end of a rope and drew it through the conduit while my wife applied lubricant to it and fed it in to prevent excess resistance and tangles.

Once the rope was in place, I stretched and staked the pull string out across the lawn and measured it from the end to the knot I had tired earlier. This would be the length of the wires.

I purchased the wires and, bundling them together, taped them to the end of the pull rope. Then I pulled it through with my wife at the other end lubricating and feeding it into the conduit. It wasn’t all fun and games. On the first attempt the wire came loose from the pull rope and we had to start all over again.

I mounted the sub-panel in the boat house and terminated the wires. Once fed through a 50 amp GFCI breaker in the new panel in the house, we will have plenty of reliable and safe electricity to power all our needs at the water’s edge. Of course, I’ll have to rewire everything on the dock, eventually.

To facilitate a smooth transition during the actual change from the old main panel to the new, I spent an afternoon methodically and cautiously tracing and labeling each wire above the panel.

Anticipating cooler weather, I installed the portable gas heater in the future entryway. Using the old washing machine discharge line (see July 2007) as a sleeve, I inserted the gas pipe through the exterior wall. I moved the regulator and tank hook-up from its original location outside the old downstairs kitchen (see January 2008). Inside, I attached the flex connector to the heater. Hopefully this will keep the lower level warm, but most of the heat may instead rise up the stairway to the upper level. Time will tell.

On the 14th we purchased a huge, ugly propane tank. It was not exactly what we wanted, but the smaller tank (that could have been placed against the house, and would have been less obtrusive) would not have been big enough to supply the amount of gas required by the future gas furnace. And, of course, the installers didn't meet my exacting standards, so I'll have to straighten things up a bit.

On the 21st, an electrician friend of mine came to help with the panel swap. He pulled the meter and disconnected the main feeder wires. We disconnected all

the other wires and pulled the old panel from the wall. We enlarged the hole through the exterior wall and installed a nipple (something that should have been done originally, but that obviously never was). Then we installed the new panel and connected the new feeders. He also added a ground wire to the meter base (something else that never was). We systematically reconnected all the circuits. Unfortunately, my concerns about wire length were realized in that many of the existing wires were too short to reach the new breakers. We had to splice them. This was a temporary measure. I’ll have to run new longer wires where I can, and splice the others in a junction box somewhere above the panel. Finally, he reinstalled the meter.

Down at the boat house I temporarily fed everything out of the new sub-panel. The rewiring of the dock will be a major project all its own.

Using a shovel, an axe, two chain saw chains, my water jetter, a chain, a cable hoist, sheer determination, and a big ol' heapin' helpin' of tenacity, I eventually succeeded in extracting the ligustrum stump (see October 2008). After working on this stupid thing for nearly two months, it was good to finally be triumphant. I wrapped it with a chain and hitched it to the riding mower. I drug it to the front patio—to the burn pit. I started a fire with the wood from the previously cut and stacked stalks and branches. I basically buried it in fire in the hope that it would be enough to completely consume it. I felt that my hopes were not particularly realistic so I decided then and there to make the massive chunk of wood a central theme in all future fires until it disappeared.