The price of progress

On Monday afternoon there was a lot of hubbub across the street. A big truck with some dubious mechanized equipment was doing something that we couldn't see because whatever they were doing was being obstructed by the giant truck. My brother-in-law went outside to find out what the hell they were up to, and it turns out they were installing new poles to run phone lines to the house up the road from us.

I'm torn between feeling sympathy for the people up the street who seemed to have lived there a mighty long time without having access to a land line and being upset that our view has become tainted by a new wire. As you can see, there were electrical wires already but they were positioned high enough that they didn't cut across our view when sitting on the balcony. Alas, the phone wires are too low to be avoided. Such is the price of progress in our little village.