On . . . New Poles . . .

Normally something as mundane as the neighbourhood getting new hydro poles (telephone poles, utility poles, call them what you will) wouldn't really be post-worthy, but for some reason the whole process fascinated me to the point where I even took pictures. That and it was noisy as all get out and I kept going to the window to see what they were doing.

It started a few weeks ago when men with cans of spray paint descended on the area and left their marks. There was blue for water, yellow for gas, and a mysterious pink one. After contemplating this for several days, I figured the pink marked the spot where we were getting new hydro poles.

My suspicions were confirmed when a few days later a truck deposited a pile of hydro poles in the circle of our crescent. Ha! I was right.

So about a week after that a truck came around for the first step, digging a hole for the new pole:

Actually, they dug two holes with their nifty machine. The second one was for the wire that braces the pole:

They dug the holes throughout the neighborhood over the course of two days.

The next step was planting the new poles. First, they used a baby digger (I forget what these machines are called) to drag the poles, one by one, from the pile to where they were going to be placed.

They used a cherry picker on a hydro truck to place the pole in the hole:

Then they back-filled the hole with gravel:

And the final step was planting the anchor for the bracing wire:

And . . . I didn't realize until I started writing this post last night that I didn't have a picture of the pole firmly in place. *sigh*

Oh, well. They still need to move the wires over from the old pole to the new one. Guess that'll be a post for another day. ;-)