Electricity - 1; Water - 0

When we started this most recent phase of the renovations, we had a temporary power pole erected and brought electricity into Glenlochan that way.  Because the original overhead electrical lines to the home looked very, well, crappy, we decided to check into the process for having all of the electrical lines to the house buried.  Surprisingly, the process is not too onerous, and although the prep for this project has been multi-week, Virginia Dominion Power has been really terrific and responsive at every turn.  (I've selectively forgotten how angry I was at VA Dominion 16 months ago when Hurricane Irene left us without power for a week at our home in Richmond - selective memory is a beautiful thing.)  Here's a shot of our brand spanking new electrical boxes - no more knob and tube for us:

Next up was clearance of the trees by the road.  Although I don't have pictures of the actual work, it was done through a combo of our tree removal sub and Dominion's subs.  Apparently the trees by the road have caused some other headaches for Dominion and have contributed to some outages, so we gave them permission to be ruthless with the tree trimming and removal.

And finally, here's a shot of the fully cleared front yard - looks great, doesn't it?

Rob contacted the city water department to request that the water lines be marked so that Dominion Virginia Power workers could try to avoid them as they trenched to bury the electrical lines.  Unfortunately, the Town of Urbanna has no such records and there was no way to know where the water lines actually were buried.  So we requested that the water be turned off and hoped for the best when install day came:

Well, not only did the water lines get hit in multiple places, but the water had not been turned off as requested, so the yard quickly started flooding as water bubbled up heavily.  In the heat of the moment, no pictures were taken (I really wonder how it is that people actually have time to take pictures in times of emergencies and chaos..) but Rob hoofed it over to the water department, they quickly came out and turned off the floods, and that was the end of hot showers for Rob for a while in the camper.  We're waiting patiently for the plumber to come out and our entire water line from the street to the house will be replaced in full - the expected rain may delay this a bit longer...

So, Murphy's Law at work?  Not so much.  As it turns out, the water lines were the original ones laid when the Town of Urbanna first provided city water and they were within the end of their lifetime anyway.  So, although our budget will take a slight hit to replace everything now, this actually was a very positive development and saved us from emergency replacement and digging up the yard after it was no longer a construction zone.  And, per my usual thoughts on such things...everything worked out the way it was supposed to.  Easy for me to say, I suppose, I didn't have to clean up with cold bottled water in a camper after a hard day of physical labor!   Final score:  electricity is flowing through our nice new underground lines and the water remains turned off as of today.