To: SI Bob who wrote (10616 ) 4/9/2007 6:32:20 PM From: SI Bob Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 32883 Thought this would be a good place to add another of my "oversized Tonka toy" stories. I've got a JCB 260B excavator now. This machine is so big it could pick up (or demolish) the backhoe effortlessly. Lots of fun and really useful. About 2 months ago I used it to dam across the creek leading into my lake so the spring upstream of it could replenish. And to slow down the water going to the lake which I'm trying to dry out enough to muck it out and raise the dam a bunch. Well, about 2 weeks ago I built a bigger temporary dam further downstream to hold back more water to help the lake dry out better. And to give me an idea how the lake will look from the road. Breath-taking! And it's not built all the way up yet, the reason for which is below. After I built that dam, I dug out the other temporary dam. Found out a day or two later that the phone hadn't worked in a day or two. You see where this is going. As I was going outside with a handset to plug in to the box to determine whether the problem was in-house wiring or the outside line, I saw a telco truck down at the bridge going over the creek. Sure enough, the phone lines for not only my place but everyone east of me just happened to run under the creek. Barely under. And outside the county easement. And part of them were sticking out of the ground. At the repairman's request, I dug around on the other side of the creek to find the other part of the line and he was able to patch it. Said he checked because he was puzzled why it was so far into my land and said that the previous owner (my father-in-law) had given them permission to put it there. I told him that he apparently hadn't counted on a future owner being an idiot with the wrong kinds of toys. Fortunately, he was amused. And they're going to horizontal-bore under the bridge to move the lines, which they needed to do anyway because there are more new homes going in than they have lines to serve. On a side note, some people bought the land across from me to put up two houses and I saw them out walking around so went over to tell them about the lake plans and make sure they didn't have a problem with a bit of their land ending up underwater (they didn't) and they actually thought I was in the excavation business because of the toys. I replied with "Nah. Dot-commer who's just a bit too self-indulgent." Of course, this being Boogerville, I had to explain to them what a dot-com was, and how some people actually do make a living off that thing called the "internet".