Posts Tagged ‘electric fence’
Springing Considerably
The forest floor is sprouting forth with an abundance of white trout lilies this week. It made me curious about the trillium that we transplanted from our lake place last year. I should have marked them better, because the complete transformation of the woods in a year’s time has me confused now over where I put them.
I planted the “borrowed” trillium in several small groups in a section of woods just below the house. Surveying the area late yesterday, it seemed like the only growth was trout lilies, but I eventually spotted a grouping of the distinctly different leaves.
In a few weeks, flowers will make the trillium much easier to spot.
Up north, it is obvious how prolific trillium is in naturally propagating to carpet the woods and create a dramatic visual. We are hoping to seed our spaces with enough starters to enable the natural process to do the rest.
After some passing gentle rain showers on Thursday, the pasture that I mowed last weekend is greening up nicely. I strung the webbing between posts yesterday to complete the divider fence that will allow us to rotationally graze the horses on that precious field.
The point where I connected the new webbing to electricity is right at the paddock, and the horses took great interest in what I was doing. I had the charger turned off to work, and while I experimented with several methods of connection, Legacy and Cayenne took turns putting their noses right into the business at hand.
I sure hope they are keen enough to sense the hazard of doing that when the electricity is on.
Even though they already had a stint on the alley grass earlier in the day, Cyndie talked me into letting them come out on the pasture with the new divider for a short nibble after so patiently watching me fix it up all afternoon.
I can’t really say whether they even noticed the new divider, because their attention was exclusively focused on the succulent green blades immediately available just steps beyond the opened gate.
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Situations Happen
You just never know what is going to come next. When we went to bed on Saturday night, there were no concerns on our radar. I started the day yesterday in the sunshine, modifying pallets for future use. In a moment of pause, I gave Delilah a chance to join me on a trip to check on the horses, to look at the arena fence that Cyndie told me had been taking some abuse from Legacy.
The last time we took down temporary fencing that kept the horses out of the hay-field, it meant we lost the connection to electricity for the arena fence. Turned out that wasn’t a problem for more than a month, but horses have a way of eventually getting around to dealing with anything in their reach. Legacy has proven himself very persistent, once he figures out he can get his teeth into something.
It was time I put electricity back on the arena fence.
My first problem was that the horses would scarcely grant me a break from their messing with the portions of the fence I had just put back in order. As I moved to a different spot, they congregated at the previous location, eyeing their prize.
I reacted with little thought to the appropriateness of my action and ran after them, inviting Delilah to join me in the chase. She was more than thrilled at the rare opportunity. Most days, she is subject to firm restrictions when it comes to harassing the horses.
We rounded the bend at the end of the arena with maximum energy and the horses reacted with a bit of shock over the unprecedented sight. They scrambled around and circled to face us from a distance. Legacy was very unhappy with our behavior and snorted with a boldness I have not seen before.
I stood my ground, conveying the seriousness of my desire that they not mess with the fence, and then slowly headed back to my work on the next section.
Legacy moved them back up after a few minutes, and when I spotted him biting the fence again, I called Delilah to action, and we charged again. She loved it. The herd made a bigger circle back and stood a little farther away, this time staying put long enough for me to finish what I was doing.
On my way back through the paddock, I spotted ice covering their water, which meant the electric heat wasn’t working. That meant they hadn’t had access to their water all morning.
Best I can tell, the ground fault safety on the circuit breaker is either failing, or doing its job and telling me there is a problem. I’m inclined to believe it’s the former. Further testing to follow, as soon as I can find a replacement GFI circuit breaker.
Just a couple of things I didn’t see coming to keep things interesting around here over the weekend.
Situations happen.
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Stopping Snapping
To most of you who have known me for a long time, my transition to ranch hand and horse wrangler (I’ll hold off on claiming any prowess with a dog for now) over the last two years may seem a bit surprising.
Personally, I feel a bit more amazed than surprised, partly because it all has come rather easily to me. Yesterday, without a hitch, I breezed through a fence repair that had me marveling over how familiar it seemed, for someone having no fence experience whatsoever a short time ago.
With the temperature swings from hot to cold that we’ve experienced lately, our wire fences are looking a little less taut than usual. After long hours at the (now temporary) day-job, followed by a stop at our health clinic for a pre-international-travel checkup, I stepped out to feed the horses and found a wire tension ratchet arcing.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
I think it bugs the horses, so I try not to neglect tending to these when they begin to arc. Oftentimes, oddly enough, moisture seems to bring it on, but this case was caused when the tension reduced over time and the electrical connection from wire to metal ratchet degraded. That results in arcing with creates a build up of carbon, which then reduces the connection even more.
To fix it, I start by turning off the charger and then loosen the ratchet. That allows me to get access to the place where the coated wire runs through the hole in the ratchet. The original installer saved time by not removing the coating from the wire, but the downside of doing that is the likelihood of future arcing. I strip off the coating altogether, creating a connection that is bare wire to bare metal. Works like a charm.
When I finished yesterday’s repair and turned the charger on again, that junction was completely silent.
It was so quiet that it enabled me to then hear a different spot farther down the line doing a quieter version of the same snapping sound. I decided to wait on that one, since it was out on the hay-field where the horses don’t have access for the time being.
Maybe it will be one of those that goes away on its own.
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Temporary Fencing
While I was in having lunch yesterday, the buried electric lines were marked with flags and paint. I had been watching for them the whole morning while I was down cutting tree branches along the planned new fence line near our southern border. Nothing happened. I walked out of the house after lunch and —boom— there were the red flags. It was magic!
It’s a good thing we thought to have the wires marked, because they don’t run in a straight line at all, and my planned gate location was right over them. I moved in a bit.
Having the electrical lines marked instantly changed my afternoon itinerary. It was time to put up some temporary fence so the horses can graze on the north side of our driveway. The first thing I wanted to do was bury a couple of wood posts so we could hang a gate. The rest of the fence will be pounded t-posts. I dug about a foot and a half down and water appeared!
I set the post in the hole and hung the gate on it, just to see if there might be a way to make it work. Then I called our fence guy and he confirmed that I needed to come up with a different plan for a gate. I’ll rig up something using t-posts and the webbed fence line. That meant I was on to pounding posts.
That is one heck of a workout. I was pounding posts all afternoon. Everything was laid out for me from the preparation work we did on Sunday, which helped smooth the routine out a bit, however I ended up making a couple changes to the route.
We think the horses will like it. There are a lot of evergreen trees scattered through half of this space, and I moved the fence to include a variety of other overgrown areas. It will give them some places to explore, in addition to the areas of lush grass they will be able to graze.
Since this fenced area of grazing is remotely located, we will have to escort them on a lead line to move them in and out of it, as opposed to the other spaces we have where we can just open a gate from their paddock. I’m considering rigging up a line with something hanging off it every 6 feet that I could hang across our driveway to create a visual barrier to help confine them to the direction we want them to go. We DON’T want them getting away from us and heading down the driveway.
We still need to buy a device to allow us to electrify the fence, since it is on the other side of the driveway from our existing system. Legacy has proved that he will mess with pretty much everything he can get his mouth on. A little electric shock potential does wonders to help him mind his manners. Until the white webbing is electrified, we will not be able to leave them in there unsupervised for any extended amount of time.
It will be tempting for me to try to put them over there during the day today, but I will wait until Cyndie can be present for their initial introduction to this new space. That will allow us to move them in pairs, which will make them a little more comfortable while they learn a different way of getting to this new grazing space.
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Important Lesson
Legacy is showing signs of growing a bit shaggier in preparation for the onset of winter weather. That same growth hasn’t been as noticeable on the others yet. “Legs” doesn’t hesitate for a second to walk over to the fence to command our attention when there is something he wants. On this day, he was getting tired of being wet, and wanted to go in the barn for the rest of the evening. It was the day Cyndie returned home, so we were able to give them all a chance to get dry.
I don’t like it when he approaches when I am not at a gate. The top wire and the third wire are electrified. We have not witnessed them getting shocked by the fence yet, but I’m confident they know about it, one way or another. Still, I don’t want him to accidentally get bit by it when he is focused on communicating with us and neglecting to pay attention to the fence between. I would rather it happen only when he is being mischievous with the perimeter of his confines.
Last night, well after dark, I was walking Delilah on a leash and Cyndie was putting hay out for the horses as she was bringing them in from the big field for the night. We were up the driveway a bit, and Delilah noticed Cyndie’s head lamp moving about in the distance. The dog walked up to the fence to investigate, but got too close and received a shock. She let out a series of yelps as she ran off in a circle around me.
That scared the horses and they ran out of the paddock before Cyndie had gotten the gate closed.
It was the second night in a row that Cyndie was caught in the darkness when the herd startled and ran away in a thundering escape. She said the previous night was a result of some exclamation I made up at the house when I stepped out the door to greet our single surprise Trick-or-Treat visitors. Oops! I got so excited I scared the horses.
They were neighbors we hadn’t met yet, who took advantage of Halloween to come up and say hi, so I was thrilled.
Our horses are showing signs of being comfortable with their new home, but they continue to be quick to exercise their emergency response reactions. Cyndie is learning to make sure she is highly visible when she is inside the paddocks with them after darkness has set in. That’s an important lesson, because I don’t think I can be trusted to keep from doing something that might end up startling the herd while she’s in there.
Relative Something 