Posts Tagged ‘electric fence’
Warming Up
We added a few more degrees for our daytime high temperature yesterday, and it is beginning to feel pleasant for an afternoon stroll. Before Asher and I stepped out for a sunny explore, I was looking in on the horses via the camera and finally spotted Light lying down for a deeper rest.
As soon as she laid down, Mia decided to join her. They didn’t stay down for long, but every little deep nap is beneficial.
All that high sunshine made quick work of cleaning up the pavement of our driveway.
Sunday is forecast to be the first of three days with temperatures above freezing, so I expect we will see more than just the pavement emerge from the meager blanket of snow cover that has accumulated so far this year.
Enough days have passed since the last snowfall that the traffic pattern of the horses is easier than ever to discern. It is also easy to see where wildlife is traveling on our land. These tracks move across our fence line like it isn’t even there.
I once watched a deer pass between the wires of our fence without slowing down, and it didn’t even cause the lines to vibrate. Even though I witnessed it happen, I don’t see how it is possible. I don’t recall whether we had the fence energized at the time or not, but if they don’t touch the wire, that’s not going to make a difference anyway.
I sure am glad I’m not trying to make a living off of winter snow activities. It’s going to feel like shirt-sleeve weather in a couple of days.
We are looking forward to not worrying about the waterer in the paddocks freezing up for a while. I will also appreciate the wetted grain not freezing to the bottom and sides of the feed buckets.
It’s going to feel like spring is coming, but I do not want to entertain false hope. The month of March has a reputation around here of frequently being the snowiest month. I will remain cautiously optimistic, yet I may also pump air into my bicycle tires just in case the riding season gets off to an early start.
Anything that puts -30°F wind-chill temperatures out of mind will be warmly welcomed. (See what I did there?)
[in Beavis or Butt Head voice] Heh heh. He said, “warmly.”
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Hit Threes
I’ve figured it out. The way to make a big splash in the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament is to hit all of your three-point shots and shoot them with abandon from everywhere on the floor. If you want to beat a higher-seeded team, it sure helps to hit more three-pointers than they do.
While I’ve been watching basketball, Cyndie and Asher have been having some unexpected excitement in the great outdoors. I got an odd request from Cyndie in a phone call asking for a different leash for Asher and a change of gloves for her.
They had encountered a coyote on a walk on our north loop trail and Cyndie used the trunk of a pine tree to anchor Asher from bolting after the intruder. Her gloves and the leash ended up covered in pine sap. She said Asher howled with high intensity in expression of his desire to chase.
Unfortunately, the other excitement involved howling of a different sort. Asher suffered a too-close encounter with the electric fence around the back pasture. That’s the second time he has met that fate. Let’s hope it doesn’t take “three” to teach him once and for all to stay away from those white wires.
It might be a little harder to notice them today because we got a fresh coating of white over our landscape last night. Forecasters are telling us this is the first of two doses of snow we should anticipate, the second, on Sunday, being the bigger of the two.
We just might end up getting more snow in spring than we did all winter. Heavy, wet spring snow makes me fear for our tree branches.
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Fence Bit
Because I can, I turned on the US Open tennis tournament last night and caught a very entertaining first-round match between Coco Gauff and Laura Siegemund. It’s a treat to escape from thinking about what needs to be done around here for an hour or two and lose myself in a dramatic battle between two athletes.
I didn’t realize I would also find a ceremony honoring Billie Jean King on the 50th anniversary of her efforts to convince the US Open to give equal pay to women. It is easy to forget that I have lived through as many changes in the world as have occurred in my lifetime. Yet, it seems like there are still so many ways the human race falls short of ideals.
Asher is showing how to lose oneself in a nap.
Cyndie caught him in the landscape pond again. She said this time he went under her makeshift barrier and since she saw him going in, was able to stop him before he destroyed another intake filter. She also reported that he finally got shocked by the electric fence around the pasture.
He seemed pretty subdued to me the rest of the day. I hope he learns to avoid it from here on out.
Shortly after his fence incident, I had the power off while I weed-whipped around it. His timing was just a little off. I’m guessing he doesn’t sense the electric field like the horses can when the wires are “hot.”
I didn’t get bit by fence electricity but I walked into plenty of invisible spider webs yesterday.
Here is one of my phone camera shots where I couldn’t get it to jump to macro lens focus:
The web that wasn’t in focus is one of the few traps I was able to see and thus successfully avoid. The rest are all stuck to my clothes or peeled off my face.
It rained for a few seconds last night, despite the weather radar failing to depict any precipitation overhead. It was too brief to even get anything wet.
I called for an update on the schedule for getting our driveway shoulders professionally finished and was finally given a date.
“Wednesday,” he said.
I assumed he meant next week but, no, he told me it would be this week. I’m not going to hold my breath for that to actually happen.
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Visiting Walkers
Asher is home with a dog sitter and we are up in Princeton visiting George and Anneliese and getting a chance to spend some time sharing fencing chores, good food, and fun games.
Cattle grazing is on some leased land where temporary fencing is installed to allow moving the herd frequently for maximum health of land and animals. We tagged along and helped a little to run a new line encircling a fresh plot of grass.
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We got a close look at what weed control via goats looks like.
I was most impressed by the way the goats tip down tall young saplings so that others can reach the leaves which sets off a feeding frenzy.
In the evening after dinner with George’s parents, we were introduced to the yard game, Kubb.
The turf of the playing field provided a vivid example of the drought conditions area farmers are enduring.
Coping with weather extremes is not for the faint of heart.
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Concrete Lifted
I successfully avoided titling this post, “Apron Lifted” but that is what happened yesterday in front of our garage. We have a plan of fixing our driveway this summer and in preparation for that, the first thing that needed to be completed was to solve the sunken concrete apron in front of our garage.
On my side of the garage, the apron has fallen almost three inches. We were warned by the company doing the work to be careful moving our cars back into the garage because the old habit of revving the accelerator to get over the bump will no longer be necessary.
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The company we chose uses polymeric sand to seal the gap between the apron and the main garage slab. This was my first exposure to the material and leaves me intrigued to consider using it in other applications in the future.
The rest of the day for us was almost as productive as it was for the rapid and efficient concrete lifting crew. (They were in and out within about one hour.) I got some power trimming done down by the road at our driveway entrance, we received a visit from the farrier to trim the horses’ hooves, and I pulled out the diesel tractor to mow the back pasture.
It took me longer than one hour but I’m focused on how smoothly the whole mowing project went, all the way from getting the tractor out for the first time in months, finding the ground wasn’t too wet and soft for the weight of the big machine, and finally, finishing all the cutting without incident.
I’m always nervous about operating the heavy equipment around our fences. It will be much easier to wield the power trimmer to clean up the last remains of tall grass that is growing underneath the fence, especially after I remember to turn off the electric jolt pulsing down the wires.
I don’t know why it is so hard for me to remember to shut that off in advance.
When I was all done mowing the back pasture I discovered a bumper crop of dandelion seeds had piled up on the brush cutter behind me.
Better they landed there, I guess than out on the ground. Not that there wasn’t an equal amount blowing around every which way around me as I mowed.
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Brilliant Day
The weather yesterday was perfect for a September outdoor event. A lot like the day 40-years ago today when Cyndie and I were married in a garden on the shore of Lake Minnetonka. Blue skies, warm sunshine, and tree leaves turning colors right before our eyes.
I took Delilah for a walk in anticipation of the arrival of Hays family visitors and paused on the first hill of our driveway to enjoy the fresh breeze and take in the panoramic view of the horses peacefully grazing in the hayfield. The beginnings of the rainbow of fall colors are noticeable along the horizon.
Throughout the day of visiting and gorging on delicious food, we took time for walks in the woods and visits with the horses. The herd is growing more welcoming of human presence and they all made very obvious movements to approach us as we arrived near the areas they were grazing.
I had turned off the electric fence for the day to remove that concern while larger numbers of people come around, but that change is a little confusing for the horses. We try to have our greetings happen at one of the gates to give the horses consistency but the spontaneity of yesterday’s connections had us at unusual locations along the fenceline.
At one point, a group of us made our way up to the barn overhang, hoping the horses might follow along, despite them being over the rise on the far side of the hayfield. Initially, only Light decided to make the journey back and she was rewarded with some hand-offered treats.
After a time, Mia came into view as she returned as far as the waterer before deciding to reverse direction and head back out. The two chestnuts looked as though the distance of separation between them and the other two horses was something they preferred to minimize.
Their bond with each other is still stronger than any bond with us humans.
The bond with my family is as strong as ever and we enjoyed catching up on a few details and comparing experiences and perspectives. We share a lot of traits and laughed over how much our lives and behaviors tend to resemble our parents.
After the first couple had departed, we realized our neglect in capturing a group portrait. By the end of the day, we never got around to posing for any specific group pictures. I guess we will need to get together again soon so we can make up for that oversight.
The only picture I took included the spread of scrumptious delights available for human grazing presented on the center island of the kitchen.
Today, we hop from one family gathering to another as this day of Cyndie’s and my wedding anniversary is also the day of Julian’s birth. Cyndie’s mom and brother will be joining us for a brunch date in St. Paul at Holman’s Table in a renovated control tower of St. Paul’s downtown airport to celebrate the occasions.
Happy birthday, Julian!
Happy September 19th, everyone!
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Posts Pounded
We made our way around the entire loop of our fencing yesterday, pounding posts back down that our winter freeze had pushed up. Two years ago, after we no longer kept horses inside the fence, I loosened some fence lines to see if that would reduce how much the corner posts appeared to come up.
I don’t think it made any positive difference, but before tightening the wires back up in preparation of turning the electricity on, I wanted to get all the corner posts back down. Most of them moved down multiple inches easily, but a few hardly budged.
We didn’t fuss over those.
If nothing more than psychologically satisfying, it felt like a worthy effort. We rewarded ourselves after all the work by immediately turning on the electricity to the fence wires.
The familiar “click-click-click” came on and the display ramped up to a respectable 12Kvolts energy. Mission Accomplished.
Almost.
I still need to walk the length and verify voltage is present on all sections.
Cyndie already identified three locations where some arcing is occurring, so I want to look into those in hope of solving the causes.
That situation is no different than what we dealt with regularly back when we previously had horses, so it feels perfectly acceptable for welcoming the arrival of our new 4-horse herd.
We are stoked! We’re expecting to receive delivery on Friday. Hopefully, that can be confirmed after today’s visit from This Old Horse.
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Complicated Water
We have water in the paddocks again, but it took far more than simply opening a valve. Friday morning brought constant drizzle with few, if any, breaks. Only periods where it leaned toward actual rain that succeeded in changing the state of our clothes from merely damp to becoming downright wet.
Our guy, Mike, from the excavation company that originally installed our paddock water fixture showed up prepared to do battle, but the circumstances of the cracked valve and seized fittings forced a suspension of work to visit the hardware store in River Falls for an altered solution.
Multiple times, the buried column beneath the waterer needed to be bailed out to allow Mike to see what he was doing. The complication of our setup involves the freeze/thaw cycles that our having turned off the water for two winters fouled up.
Unlike the spigot inside the barn, where the water shutoff is down below the frost level, the line to the waterer is a different situation. There is insulation wrapped around the line and a length of heat tape along the top section of hardware to because there is water in the line all the time.
When temperatures drop, I turn on the electricity and the fixture doesn’t freeze. When we shut the valve two years ago, I flipped the circuit breaker off and forgot about it. We’ve now learned that in the ensuing winters, the water in the line froze and cracked the shutoff valve.
Turns out, the easiest solution is to just leave it on. We’ve got it running now and ready for the return of horses. If we don’t keep horses over winter (still an unknown at this point) we’ll need to make a decision about what we’ll do with the waterer next fall.
I had no idea it could be so complicated to have an automatic water source in the paddocks. Obviously, the fact we experience severe cold temperatures adds one level of complexity, but the fact our location is so wet seems to be a compounding factor.
Yesterday, Cyndie and I finished cleaning up the barn to a degree I didn’t think possible. It looks fabulous and reminds me of the impression we got when we first walked in to see it nine years ago. The four stalls still look almost new.
The final exercise I want to finish today involves pounding down a few more fence posts and tightening up all the wires before turning on the electricity to see where there might be arcing. With that complete, we will feel entirely prepared to host a visit tomorrow from a representative of This Old Horse who will confirm our facility as suitable.
More important for us, this will allow them to know where they are headed and how to position a trailer for offloading horses and smoothly introducing our new guests to their summer accommodations.
I look forward to the horses discovering where they will be able to get a cool drink of water.
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Totally Busted
My ruse of relying on snow cover to distract Cyndie from noticing the grass was still carpeted by leaves when she returned home from Guatemala has already been dispelled.
On Saturday, the sun came out for a little while and began to shrink the 3-to-4 inches of snow we received, down to about half that depth. Yesterday, she and Delilah were playing a little leashed version of “fetch the stick” out front and the truth was sadly revealed.
It was interesting. The leaves so thoroughly covered the ground that the grass and soil beneath look unaffected by the snow. I think, if we raked up the leaves today, we’d have an amazing visual of a completely snow-free green lawn, while everywhere else would be snowy.
The chickens would sure appreciate that. This was the first significant snowfall in their lives and they were not at all interested in venturing out from the coop Saturday morning to walk in it.
By yesterday, they were already overcoming their hesitancy to tread on the white stuff and revisiting some of their usual favorite spaces. They do so at their own risk.
While we were out walking Delilah in the afternoon, I spotted an unidentified bird of prey circling the tree tops around the coop. It didn’t have the classic white tail of the previous eagle that swooped through our trees, but it could simply have been a youngster or even a golden, let alone any other variety of larger hawk.
We split up and Cyndie circled back to directly check on the chickens, while I continued around the perimeter with Delilah. The hunting predator glided up and away almost immediately.
I’m so pleased to have remembered to tell Cyndie that I had turned the electric fence back on while she was away. The horses were growing too comfortable with nibbling on parts of the wire insulation and nearby wood. If the fence had still been off, Cyndie would have ducked between wires and been able to walk straight toward the coop.
While I was cleaning up under the overhang a day or two after turning the electricity back on again, Cayenne took a startling snap to the nose. Mission accomplished. The horses were lolling around idly while I worked and she stretched toward one of the very spots I wanted to stop them from biting.
The horses generally notice from a distance that the fence is energized, so they very rarely get shocked. Maybe we left it off for too much of the summer, and they had grown complacent. I’m willing to bet they have already re-learned the necessary respect that will break any habit of chewing on the wires.
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Not Electrified
With horses, if you happen to leave the power off the electric fence, they will eventually mess with it. In our case that trait is usually demonstrated by Legacy. If he gets bored, something is going to get chewed. If the fence isn’t electrified, it becomes a prime target.
Over the weekend I noticed one of our web fence lines was loose. Leaving the plowed pathway, I climbed through un-energized fence wires to get to the source of the problem. Somebody had busted the plastic mount holding the web anchor. 
Why do we turn off the electric fence? Sometimes it is simply because company is visiting and we don’t want anyone to accidentally get jolted. Other times, it is due to excessive arcing occurring for a variety of reasons where circuit isolation has been compromised. Most recently, it was because of an overall load pulling the voltage down to a level where it wasn’t really effective.
I’ve been hoping to get through the winter before really diving into the problem spots to fix whatever needs fixing.
Legacy is letting me know I probably shouldn’t wait that long.
When I stopped by to replace the broken anchor yesterday afternoon, the horses were on the far side of the paddock, loitering around the watering hole. Despite the distance, Legacy decided he wanted in on whatever I was up to and came over to help.
He seemed to take great interest in what I was doing. Probably because he could see I was messing with something that he had just “fixed.” He didn’t want the new anchor re-attaching this fence he’d just gotten rid of.
When I finished installing the replacement, I wanted to turn it on to see what the voltage was —as well as give Legacy a little surprise, should he continue to mess with it— but I needed to clean up under the overhang and feed the crew first.
When I got up to the house after feeding the horses, I realized I’d forgotten to test the electricity on the fences.
I sure hope the new bracket is still intact by the time I get back down there to power the fence for a test later today.
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Relative Something 