A changing of the grid

We have been witnessing a major change in our neighborhood. You could say that this change is historical, if you count something that happened seven decades ago as historical.

This earth-shattering change has to do with holes being bored into the earth and the placement of ginormous wooden poles. That’s right — after years of 70 years of service, the old power lines that pass by our farm are being replaced. The power lines are part of the grid which, in turn, are a component of our electrical infrastructure.

A few weeks ago, a colossal pile of wooden poles were dropped off in the ditch by the road that runs west of our house. This wasn’t a surprise; our rural electric cooperative had informed us last year that the power lines would be upgraded. A team of utility guys had come through about a month before and used a GPS doodad to mark the spots where the new poles would go.

I found it interesting that even though they used the latest high-tech instruments, they marked the places for the new pole holes by pounding hand-lettered wooden laths into the ground.

One afternoon, I heard the rumble of diesel engines and the telltale “beep, beep” of a “Look out, I’m backing up!” alarm. The new poles were going in! There hasn’t been this much excitement since that crop duster airplane sprayed the neighbor’s soybean field.   

There is a trick to installing new power lines while the old ones remain in service. It involves shoving the old poles over to a crazy angle to make room for the new ones. It now looks as though whoever planted the old poles was a lot more than half a bubble off.

One of the workmen was operating a boom truck. Its boom hoisted the poles as easily as a child picking up a Lincoln Log. After the pole was plunked into place, a bevy of workmen shoveled dirt into the hole and began to tamp it down. One of the crewmen stood back a short distance and eyeballed the row of new poles. Using hand signals, he instructed the boom operator to nudge the pole east or west.

The boom operator then held a plumb bob at arm’s length and eyeballed the leftness and the rightness of the pole. I found it interesting that they were using such ancient methods amidst all their spiffy new technology.

I chatted with John, one of the Legacy Power Line crewmen who was installing the new poles.

I asked him how big the new poles are. “These poles are 45 feet long and weigh about 1,500 pounds,” he said.

Yikes! So, you don’t want to drop one on your toe. How far apart will the new poles be?, I replied.

“We’re putting one in every 200 feet. It looks like the old ones were 300 feet apart. We’ll also be stringing up new aluminum conductors," said John.

What are those extra doohickeys on the crossarm of that pole?, I inquired.

“Those are lightning arrestors. We install them on every fourth pole," he said.

I don’t know anything about utility scale electricity and even less about the way that lightning arrestors work. Maybe it goes something like this — “OK, Lightning, you’re under arrest! Any thunder you say will be used against you in a court of law.”

The next morning, the crew was working on a corner pole right next to our trees. I strolled out to observe — I love work, I can watch it all day — as our dog, Bella, sauntered at my side.

Bella is an extremely vigilant watchdog. As soon as she saw those strange men doing strange things on our land, she sprang into action. Bella bolted over to a workman who was kneeling beside a pole and shoved her head beneath his free arm. She then deployed her patented “pet me” enticement method on the unwary workman.

The guy was surprised but complied with Bella’s non-verbal request. Not satisfied with this, Bella visited another kneeling workman and collected even more pets. After her mission was accomplished, Bella finally obeyed my command to “cut that out and come here!”

Perhaps Bella understood on some mystic level that the men were working to make our grid more reliable. Maybe, she knows that this will help ensure that her heated doghouse will always remain toasty warm next winter.

However, I’ll need to have a word with Bella if she becomes too enamored of the workmen.