Serving Up Highland Groves

I remember being a newlywed and trying to make fabulous meals for my husband; actually preparing the dishes wasn't all that difficult, since I could read and obey the cookbooks. What was hard was getting everything to the table hot. How to keep the vegetables from getting mushy while the entree was finishing its cooking time? And that home-made bread that added 30 pounds to our girth our first year of marriage? It's best served warm from the oven, but if the oven needs to be used for the roast...

I'm noticing a similar trend in community-building. One must time things in the proper order. I have been waiting with bated breath for the turf to be installed in Highland Groves. Okay, actually, I learned long ago not to hold my breath for any part of any project to be completed because it always takes longer and costs more, as you know. But I've been watching for turf, and thought that we might return from our camping trip to an installed verdant green parkway. Well, this is how it looked yesterday:




Trees are good; in fact, they are very good in the Morrison Ranch economy. They have to be installed before the turf, but after the soil amendment and the turf block. By the way, here is a close-up look at the installed turf block. This is not a cracked sidewalk, but the connection of two 2 foot squares of block made up of a zillion hexagonal shapes of hard plastic. Don't tell the cement truck drivers, but when they "accidentally" drive on the edge of the parkway, it won't leave the big ruts in the grass.


But back to my food-serving analogy. We were expecting turf weeks ago, and while I'm happy to see the soil amendment, the turfblock, and the trees, I was wondering about the turf. Apparently, the problem has to do with the power. There are various control boxes scattered throughout the development that contain the clocks to run the computerized irrigation system. These require electrical power, and the connections must be inspected by SRP as well as the Town of Gilbert. The inspections have been ordered, but both SRP and the Town inspectors are very backed up and it can take a couple of weeks to get them both on site for inspections. In the meantime, if our electricians install the required wiring, it disappears nearly as fast as it goes in, stolen every night. So the trick is to have everything but the grass installed and waiting; and then to install the wiring right before the inspections, and then right after the inspections to install the sod that has to be ordered and waiting at precisely the right time. It's a lot tougher than getting a meat dish, a starch dish, and a vegetable dish on the table simultaneously hot. But the attempt is being made, and therefore the trees are being hand-watered right now, and installed as fast as they can, with one eye out for the notification of the electrical inspections. So I'll keep watching for the turf.

The tot lots are being installed however, and here is a picture of one of them at the north lake, looking south:





Apart from my impatience for grass, I have to say that Highland Groves is really progressing nicely.