Grounded

Mike's back from his winter working at Panorama Mountain in B.C. That brings the BMD (Bondi Maintenance Dept.) back to full strength, and Brian immediately took advantage of that.

To ground the solar array, a deep trench was dug along the front of the framework -- and we do mean deep. This was then filled with material that will hold water better than the classic Muskoka gravel that is currently there. Every time I see any digging taking place on that hill I marvel again that our grandparents, Joseph and Elizabeth, were able to farm this land at all. The topsoil cover is very thin... the sand and gravel, on the other hand, this we had in abundance. It is worth keeping in mind that this hilltop is part of the same land where the gravel was dug out to build not only the early Township Roads (back when it was Franklin, not Lake of Bays!) but also to build Bigwin Inn. That gravel was taken out by hand, one wheelbarrow load at a time, and transported down past the rows of potatoes to the barge tied at the shore. Up to 14 men worked away at that -- Elizabeth got paid by Bigwin to feed them lunch and dinner -- for the several seasons it took to build the Inn in the late 19-teens (is that the correct term for the period between 1918 and 1920?) and early 1920's.

This is an early postcard of Bigwin - note that the Dance Pavillion is not yet built, and there are causeways across to the little adjacent Shaw's Island. The circular buidling at the water's edge -- well, that's Bondi gravel at work. It's still at work today, in the renovated Bigwin Island Golf Club currently on the Island.

C.O. Shaw, owner of Bigwin, was a tyrant. He was of the opinion that the workers who had the old-fashioned wheelbarrows with metal tires would be allowed to walk up and down the slope to the lake at Bondi, but those who were using the new-fangled models, with rubber tires... well, they should run.

All in all, we're glad Brian, Dave and Mike were using a backhoe.

Into the trench, newly filled with more conductive friendly fill than sand, went realms of copper cables and various do-dads that ensure this structure is correctly grounded. After all, once the array starts to hum, it will be generating sizable amounts of energy, so safety precautions are always necessary.