HOMESTEADING CAPITAL IS WHERE YOU FIND IT

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It all seemed no sweat ... until the company's survey team arrived. We then learned that the REA people only put in their service on a straight line (it saves them money not to jink all over the landscape). Unfortunately, that meant the Administration wouldn't be stringing the wires up our curving mountain road, as I'd hoped, thereby reducing our clearing operation to nearly nothing. No, they're coming through our north pastures . . . a distance of 1,730 feet!

The problem is that in the thirteen years since this place last had people and the eight years since it last had electricity, those fields have grown to a jungle of buck brush, greenbrier, sticker trees (honey locust) and persimmon trees. And, even before we started putting in the second Alcan Highway through that undergrowth, some other miscellaneous costs had to be met.

The first expense was $15.00 to join Big Brother (a co-op). Next we were required to buy a 150-amp "meter loop" . . . the gizmo that contains the meter and links the main lines with our house. REA supplied the meter housing free ... but the guts, weatherproof casings and inner wires had to be connected and stuffed into a not-free, 15-foot pipe affair which will attach to our main power pole like a rain spout to a house. A local lumberyard put this arrangement together for $106. (We could have had a smaller-capacity 60-amp loop for only $60.00—or a 100-amp model for $85.00—but we'll eventually want electricity for future outbuildings without having to pay for another loop installation.)

The final good news came by letter: Our minimum monthly bill for the next three years will run $11.47. It seems that Ol' Big allows $1,000 for the poles, lines and labor, and our hookup will cost $412.94 over that allotment.

SCALPING OUR NORTH PASTURES

Meanwhile, there was still the matter of that 20-foot easement. I don't yet have the time to do the required clearing, and bulldozing costs 50¢ a foot ... so I've hired a local friend at $2.00 an hour. The kicker is that I must supply the chain saw, gas and oil.

I decided to buy rather than rent the saw because I'll need winter firewood. It recently took an axe and me two hours to cut down an elm tree 30 inches in diameter, and that's a poor use of scarce time.

OK. Whole Earth says McCulloch and Homelite are the Chevy and Ford of chain saws. Looking around here, I counted one helluva lot of McCullochs, so that's what I bought: a Mac 10-10 Automatic, complete with engine oil, file and file guide, a protective plastic chain guard and a quart of McCulloch chain oil. Total expense. $191.72.

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