Fences and Phones

This past Saturday Chris, my father-in-law, and my brother-in-law undertook the big task of putting in a fence in our backyard. When we moved into our house, the backyard was open to the park behind our house. It was nice to have a nice, open yard (pretty unusual in Texas), but Chris and I quickly became irritated with the amount of foot (and bicycle) traffic through our yard. So, we called a fence company who quickly told us that it would cost $1500 dollars to put a fence along the back and one side of our yard. Yeah right! You don't know the Locketts! So, Chris and his family decided to complete the task themselves. I had full confidence, they really are a jack of all trades family. All of the poles were successfully put in place, and so far the back of the yard is complete!! yay! All that is left is to put up the chain link on the right side of the house....but here is where the complications arose (at no fault to Chris !!)

I was sitting at home yesterday afternoon and saw a couple of guys snooping around the poles on the right side of the house. I went to the front of the house and looked out the kitchen window to see several ATT trucks parked in front of our house. Then....doorbell! The man at the door informs us that when digging one of the posts on the side of the yard, the auger (digging tool) hit the phone line. Whoops! Apparently, the whole neighborhood had been without phone (and cable and internet....for those who have ATT services- we are not one of those families) since Saturday. Now, like I said earlier...this was of no fault to chris. Last Monday before any of the undertakings took place, I called the Dial Before you Dig company to come out to our house and mark all of the buried cable lines. Well, the ATT man 'forgot' to mark the side of the house. So, we had no idea that there was buried cable running along the side of our house. Chris is actually lucky that he was not shocked by any other unmarked cables! How did they remedy the situation, you might ask? well, about an hour after the knock on the door a contractor came out and dig a 3 feet deep by 3 feet wide hole in the side of our yard. Then the ATT man spent the next five hours replacing the wires. Ugh! As I am typing right now, the contractors have returned to our house to fill in the hole, replace the fence post, and place some new sod on top. Luckily, since the event was not our fault, we don't have to pay for the digging and fixing costs. The ATT rep estimated that is would cost about 1000 dollars to complete...ugh! What a monday! I have posted a couple of pics of the hole as well as a pic of the completed back fence....the end!!

The infamous Hole!

The damage

The Fence in the back....sorry for the darkness!