Ron, the country folks took a severe hit when the low interest loans for Rural Electrification went away. Wasn't all that long ago in these parts, that you could have lines erected for free. In the early 50s, Sheridan electric even ran a 3-phase line all the way from Poplar, MT to Hiway 13 (about 17 miles), just on the off chance that someone would want to pump out of the Missouri for irrigation. With the line there, when my neighbor decided to drill a well and irrigate in the 60s, the Co-Op ran a line to his well. So happens that line was only 1/4 mile away from my west property line. When I inquired about 3-phase, they quoted me $14,000 per 1/4 mile and I needed to come up with half of that and they'd pay the rest. Measuring guy must have had a bad tape measure though because my share only came to a bit over $6,000. They divided that amount into 120 pieces and every month, one of those pieces was taken off my bill until after 10 years, they had given me all my money back and I still had a line running to my site. Not quite as good as having the line built for free, but very close.

Sorry to hear about your experiences with phone boxes. Folks hereabouts aren't quite as fanatical about mowing ditches just for looks. Since it gets hot, dry, and windy a lot here; grass in ditches doesn't require frequent mowings anyways. The ditch hosting the fiber-optic box normally gets cut for hay, once a year. Swathers are more tender to running into hard things so it has survived pretty much un-scathed so far.