One mystery solved?

I promised (sort of) Ms. Anon of AV that I'd report back when I found out what those pink ties on the alley guy lines were all about. After today's short stroll, I may have figured it out. (Everything but this coil, which remains a mystery. Does cable always come complete with pink ties already attached?)

So -- as you see, a post has been installed to hold the line higher than its previous position. If you look closely, it is evident that there is a driveway next the shed.

Peer down that driveway: lo and behold, a major project involving trucks to-ing and fro-ing, loaded with decades-old siding, fixtures and such. Obviously, it was necessary to lift the guy line to let the vehicles through. Though I note that there are still pink ties on the lower end of the support line. How come???

Another view of the big project from a side alley.

And from the front, on Park Avenue. It is quite rare to see so a major a gentrification project in this neighborhood. As a finale, a peek through the upstairs window into a bedroom.

Not so incidentally, this vintage vehicle appears to be part of the new arrangements at this address.

One more minor civic mystery

Out in our neighborhoods, city and utility workers use assorted methods to communicate with one another . A prime message originator is the civic graffiti chap who sprays multi-colored intel about what's under the streets. Pink ribbons are another signal, usually tied to trees that utilities have deemed a danger or inconvenient and thus decreed to be lopped. And so I scratched my head when I saw the pink flying from guy lines that presumably were helping to stabilize a tall electricity pole in a local alley. Are they scheduled to be lopped like an overgrown oak tree? Or does it turn out that the pink ribbons are merely a suggestion that there's a problem and that Something Needs to Be Done, You Figure It Out. Maybe its time that I pass that way in alley once more to see if the problem has been solved.

Utilities in hiding

More than one city street is cut through granite, creating walls on either side of the pavement, with houses often much higher than street grade. Raising the interesting question: what about underground utilities? The mains generally run beneath the road; how are the connections made? See below.

A neat solution: an excavation into the wall for the pipe, covered up with matching pieces of rock, stacked and cemented. This is an old sewer installation (above). Grey mortar makes the similar, more recent job more readily apparent to a passer-by (below). Too bad, really. But maybe that cement will pick up granite dust to camouflage the work in due time, though that's a lot of pipe showing up.

Quite in contrast is this gas line. One the one hand, it too is carefully bricked in to match the stones. Then the good-looking masonry is ruined by that loud yellow stake and the wire fencing apparently introduced to keep loose rocks in place. However, I will say that the fencing makes an excellent trellis for wild morning glory vines (below).

I suspect the site also must collect water, as this very prolific skyrocket gilia to the left of the stake was covered with flowers the day I strolled by. Spent blossoms in surprising numbers piled up at the side of the road (below). I find a fair amount of this biennial plant in shadier locations on the west side of town. This is the same Arizona skyrocket gilia that once made the cover of Science magazine, which featured a study of plant adaptations to night nectar seekers published by an NAU team.