You Light Up My Life

"Hey, Scott, are you going to light up the world tonight?"
Over the last 4 weeks or so this has been a common question around the house. We had noticed lights on just about everything outside, gates, arches, trees, bushes, the pasture, pergolas, strung across the yard, you name it, they are everywhere. Scott, being his investigative self, decided to explore this electrical field which ended up being an electrical nightmare.
Patty's husband John is an electrical engineer and had put some 15 outlets all over the 3 acres. However, this is not enough to run all the wires, extension cords and lights that were added since the orginials. Further, Scott discovered that only 8 work. What started out years ago with a few lights and enough outlets has become many many additional lights and outlets that do not function anymore. Since all engineers have similar work schedules (i.e. they work a lot!) Patty and Tio have basically hot-wired the place over the years. I laughed about this knowing that this is pretty close to my heart; I would have done the same thing (and probably will someday).
Scott spent about 3 or 4 hours one afternoon following cords, trying lights, and basically figuring the whole system out. It was hilarious to hear his description of what went where. He figured out some lights that have not worked in years; Patty was thrilled. It was a huge connundrum and trying to figure it out had him shaking his head with laughter. He stream-lined the process somehow so that the lights are better connected and now run off of all available outlets. He came in laughing about how some outlets were burdened down with many many cords and then those extension cords have cords running off of them. Anyway, the end result is absolutely beautiful.
So many nights, he will light up the world for us and we go on strolls in the garden. It is too beautiful to describe and impossible to take pictures of. We have not yet lit everything at the same time, I'm afraid the whole place will "blow" like in Chevy Chase's "Christmas Vacation." There must be thousands of lights. Occasionally he'll turn on an area and poof, another one goes off. Oh well, he has had so much fun figuring this all out and fortunately has not even been shocked yet. He took Tio all over the garden yesterday to show him how and where he had improved the system. I think Tio was glad. I'm glad he's having this experience; I'm sure he'll be a big help to me when I do the same type of thing in my garden someday.