Two Georgia Power trucks passed me and the dogs on our walk Monday morning. I was expecting a crew, so I turned around and hurried the dogs back up to the new house. It was good that I met the crew there, because they were ready to leave. They expected to have to dig a trench from the temporary power up to the house, and they didn’t know where to put it. I explained that it had already been done, so after a consultation with the Georgia Power engineer by radio, they got to work.

All they had to do was dig up the line from the street at the temporary power drop and splice the cable there to the one that leads up to the house itself.

They have a tool for everything. This one cuts the big cables.

This one strips insulation off the big cables.

This one clamps the two bare ends together.

And this one heats the heat-shink tubing that insulates the splice.

It’s a propane torch. When its heat is applied to a plastic tube, like the one you can see at the toe of the worker’s right foot, it shrinks down to grip the cable tightly.

It didn’t take the crew long to finish. They pushed the dirt back into the hole they had dug and were on their way in under an hour. Later in the day, Leah and I went back to hang the door between the kitchen and garage. After Leah went back home, I flipped some circuit breakers and then some light switches.

And just like that we have lights in our new house. This is the kitchen. We have six recessed lights and the small ceiling fan with lights. The bare wires hanging from the walls will attach to under-cabinet lights one day. This will be a well-lit kitchen.

What you can’t see above the ceiling lights is blown-in cellulose insulation. I and two helpers did about a third of the attic on Saturday. Cellulose insulation is finely ground paper with a flame retardant. I brought 100 bales to the house Friday evening and Saturday morning. One helper emptied bags into the hopper of a special blower that chewed it up and blew it about a hundred feet down a plastic tube, the other end of which was attached to my hands up in the attic. We blew 50 bundles in from around 11 am to about 5 pm. It was a hot and incredibly dusty job. I have to get about 50 more packages to finish. I think we’ll get it done next weekend. After that, I expect never to go into the attic again.

In the meantime, painting is supposed to start on Wednesday, and hardwood flooring on Monday.