Count Your Blessings, Name Them One By One

I haven't spoken about the land for a long time because nothing is really happening. I guess that is not really true. What I mean is we haven't been out to the land doing anything. There have been things happening in the business sense though.

I suppose I should have mentioned this earlier, as we could use prayer for our situation. I know that God is in our move, so I am not 'worried', but I would like to see it work itself out. So here is the story.

We knew that we would have to hook up our hydro (electricity) to one of two neighbours. We had heard from one neighbour that earlier prospective buyers had tried to talk to the neighbour on the east side about hooking up to her hydro line and she had said a strong NO. The neighbour on the west side is the one we talked to. He was very friendly and told us, No problem!

We left it at that thinking it was as simple as that.

Time went by and Ray called the hydro company about starting the paperwork to get our connection set up when the winter was over. It was then that we discovered it was a complicated mess. Things have untangled themselves a bit since then, but this is the story we were told at the time:

Our property runs up against another property on one side, and against another property one a second side. Both of these families, plus one other further down the line are one a 'private electrical' line. Apparently, about 30 years ago, these three ranchers put up the line, one family at a time. As they moved onto the land they joined the lines and it went from A to B to C. We want to be D.

But what they are not aware of is that this line was never owned by the electrical company. It has always been a private line. The *first blessing* is that it turns out it has been serviced by the electrical company, as if they own it. That is a *huge* blessing!

The first hurdle was the electrical company figured the poles were on private land and the electrical company didn't have a right to trespass to put up another pole for us. They could have permission of the landowners, but without going to court to make it legal, these homeowners could still call them trespassers. So they might have had to see if they could buy a very thin strip of land on which the poles were situated from the homeowners, so they could own that and not be trespassing.

Well, *second blessing*, it turns out that they *do* own a strip, even though they don't own the line. Very odd, but a blessing indeed.

The electrical guy has been doing all the running around without us asking him too. Very odd and the *third blessing*. He has been talking to the landowners and getting the ball rolling.

*Fourth blessing* - one of the immediate neighbours was told they would have to cut down about 30 feet of trees for us to connect our line to their pole. No problem, they say!!! Unbelieveable!

*Fifth blessing* - the huge ranch on our north side has told the electrical company that they are just fine with us hooking up to this private line. Yeah!!!

*Sixth blessing* - it turns out that the 14 poles that we thought we would need at $3,000 a pole, is wrong. They will actually string between 5 and 10 poles!!!! That is a huge savings!!

And now for the big one. We knew that we couldn't do ANY of the above talks until the electrical company found out where exactly our property line was. With property as big as ours, it would be very hard to find the pins. And when we called the guy it was in November or December and we knew we would have to wait til about May when the thaw came. That meant, according to the electrical company, that we would have to wait to build until probably late August.

Well, early one January day, we had a very strange thing happen. The days got warmer and we hit highs of 8 or 10 degrees! It was unbelievable! The snow began to melt. I didn't think anything of it with regard to our land. We all just enjoyed the lack of ultrafreeze that we could have been having. Ie: -30!

One night as I was lying in bed listening to a drip, drip, drip of snow melting off the trees and roof, I suddenly had a thought run through my mind:

You can find your property pins now.

I know I wasn't thinking of the land. I know that wasn't me thinking those thoughts. I shot up in bed and thought, "Thank you, Lord!"

I talked to Ray about going out to the land to search for the pegs, as soon as we could, before the snow came down again. Well, the thaw continued and continued.


Pretty soon we could see almost all of our grass! I knew the land would have the pegs showing. As I was going to my chiropractors office one day I thought, I should be praying about this hydro, rather than just trusting.

So I prayed. Before this point I had been rather stressed. Ignorance is bliss and I had been just fine, until the electrical man called and got me rather than Ray. He ended up telling me all our woes, and to be honest, for a while there, I was rather worried! After I gave it back to God I was okay again, but at first, I dwelled on it and wondered how we could work out all these problems.

Finding one of these in the snow would have been a real problem!

Well, I got to the chiropractors office, and as I sat down, the receptionist said to me, "The electrical company and the surveyors were out at the land yesterday! They found all the pegs."

Oh joy!!! Those guys had been so on the ball that as soon as there was a thaw they headed out to the land to find our pegs. Unbelievable. It is not everyday that a private agency will take that kind of initiative! I was thrilled. I felt it was an immediate answer to the prayer I had just prayed.

So now, this is where we are at:

Two of the three landowners have agreed to us hooking up to the line. The third party has been contacted and they have left a message, but they have not yet made contact.

The file is now being passed onto the negotiators office. They will be sending a land representative out to the landowners to negotiate a deal. Apparently, there is a value attached to us joining the line. This means that the land representative has to tell them that they have the right to charge for the electrical company joining us to the line. *Seventh blessing* - the electrical company pays these values!!! Not us!!!

If they say they want no compensation then we could be ready to go in three weeks. If they want compensation and want to take it to court then it could take a year. I really believe from how I have seen the miracles unfold thus far that God will work it out. I believe that He gave us this thaw. Even the electrical company said we were 'very lucky' to get out to the land. He said normally they couldn't get started til May. Well, we are four months ahead of that!! I know God wants us on our land.

But all the same, I would ask that you pray that God will soften these people's hearts and they will not ask for compensation and that they will simply sign the papers giving the electrical company the right to own the line.

God is so good!!

There is one other really neat factor. It turns out that one day when I was at my chiropractors office the receptionist said to me, "I hear you just bought 170 acres." I told her we had and where it was. She then went on to tell me that we were neighbours! I am very pleased. I know this lady and she is a really nice lady. I am happy for her and for us. I know that we will be good neighbours and we have already seen evidence of how kind she and her husband are!

They have used our land for walking for the last 18 years, and we are not about to stop them now. I am so glad that we are the ones to move on there and they are the neighbours closest to us!

One funny thing, when we first got to the land I was scared of getting stuck in the mud, so I went shooting past their property in my minivan flying through the mud. As I passed their house one of the kids told me there was a guy waving at me. Ooops! I knew I must have looked so rude, but that was not my intent! This was before we knew the neighbours. So that was brought up when I met her at the office and realized they were neighbours. Good first impression!! I talked fast to show her I really wasn't going to be a crazy driving neighbour!

And then one day her husband did us a really nice turn and got burned for it. He decided to plow our driveway. Well, you can imagine how long this driveway is. She laughed when she told this story. Apparently, he had driven his truck over a large boulder and ripped up two tires and bent his plow. Because they go on the land all the time, she told him, "You know that big rock is there!" He said, "That's what you get for trying to be a good neighbour." grin Thankfully, he wasn't upset with us. Poor guy!

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