Electrical Inspection Passed

See that? It's the happy sticker that the inspector left on the inside of the electrical panel to show that we passed. There will be additional inspections, of course, but this is still a milestone. Now we can cover over the walls and fill in the ditch (well, once the other ditch dries out - more on that below).

Below is the whole fuse box, you can see the little green sticker in the middle of the door. You can also see the nice neat labeling of each circut on the door. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think I've ever seen a fuse box that was clearly labeled like this before. It's a thing of rare beauty... In my experience, there's usually a bunch of indecipherable chicken scratch and crossed out bits - and that's when you're lucky enough to find labels at all. Most of the time, you just have to flip the switches one at a time and then go see if the lights are still on or not. :)
And here's the outside of the fuse box, with another official inspection/permit document taped to it. The cardboard sign reads "Caution, panel is HOT!!"
'nuff said.

Steve has nearly finished shingling the eastern porch wall. Just one more course along the top will do it, but that will probably need to wait until the soffits have been sheeted. The stain really does give them the appearance of naturally aged cedar. It really looks great with the trim around the windows and everything.
The utility ditch for everything other than the electricity is still holding a lot of water, so nothing has been layed in it yet. Even after a week of dry weather in the 80's, there's still 6-8" of murkey water in the bottom of the trench. Maybe by next week it will have dried out enough - if not, we're going to have to bring in a pump or somebody's going to have to get really muddy. My soil is so clay-ey... it literally holds water like a bucket. Brian Bird, the potter, actually made me some flower pots with our clay. I see many, many years of soil amendments in my gardening future.