eOK, apparently, I haven't blogged recently and readers may be misled to believe the cow is still missing. Well, we got her back. The neighbors had rounded up their cows for sale on the very day she entered their field and so she was loaded up will all of them and hauled off. Luckily, they cut her from the herd at their sorting facility (over a street from us) and kept her there a few days. Those few days bought us the time we needed to:
1) get the fence fixed to prevent a recurrence (coincidentally, this particluar fence repair marks my initiation into the historic old-western tradition of stringing barb wire - I had never done it before)
2) get the truck fixed so I could go over there with our stock trailer and get her
In the meantime, it has gotten officially too hot. I realized that yesterday as I swam in my own sweat while loading a few thousand pounds of granite pavers into my truck by hand and then again today as I worked to unload them dipping into the swimming pool between wheelbarrow loads to try to stay cool. Unfortunately, that pool is getting to almost be bathtub temperature and is just barely refreshing at all.
In other news, our electric fence has been restored to its former glory days and again has the potential to kill small animals and knock a grown man to his knees (kids beware). After Sam Allred was here a few days ago with some buddies, they tested their mini-manhood by grabbing the electric fence to feel the shock. That was the last straw - that fence has grown weaker and weaker and since the winter I have not been able to get it back up to full shocking power. Between Josh's cow walking through the fence and Sam holding it for fun, I decided that it was time to figure out why the voltage was not hitting like it used to. I grabbed the weedwacker and cleared weeds that were touching the lines over a mile or so of line. When I got back to the shop, I found that it had not helped at all in terms of getting the voltage up, BUT apparently it made enough of a difference that I could now here a rythmic "popping" of an electrical arc underground over near where the line reemerges from its underground path from the shop. To make a long, dirty, hot, mosquito infested story short, I dug up and located, fixed and re-buried the line and the fence was magically back to full power.
That may seem like small potatoes to the city-folk (or is it to the sane folk?) but I am just pleased as punch to have that thing up again. The real good news here is that now Josh's steer can learn to respect fences and I can actually release the big mama longhorn that we got a month or so ago so she can also learn the boundaries of our farm (she has been locked in a smaller pen and has seriously depleted the grasses in it - she really needs to graze over more territory).
Here's a couple of fun stories demonstrating the power of the fence:
- Today I had the truck backed up to the fence to unload granite and the lower line was touching the tow-ball of the truck. I was actually shocked by the truck body as I climbed into the back and also as I opened the door to try to move it!
- The arc can jump a 1/8" to 3/16" gap (with a bright white flash and loud "crack")
- As I undid a chain to open a gate at the calf pen, the chain accidentally hit a hot wire. I was shocked enough to call out audibly even though I was holding the chain probably 6" from where the chain touched the hot wire
3 comments:
Um yeah I was like 1cm from touching that darn fence, I totally wasn't paying attention! It's OK though, now Im terrified to be within a foot of that thing!
zoinks! now i'm on the side of the cps lady who's worried about that fence and kids!
The good news is...it appears that kids are just as smart as animals....they don't like to touch electric fence either.
The kids went through the same "training" that the animals wnet through where they all were instructed not to touch the fence, then proceeded to touch it (back when I first set it up it was running a very low voltage, so it wasn't too bad, but they certainly discovered that they didn't like it) and since then, they make sure they don't touch it.
Also, just for the record, I am routinely shocked by this fence due to carelessness and have never had a longterm affect.
What is really interesting is that CPS doesn't ever seem to care about the electric fence. What they are always worried about is the lake...they don't see the elect. fence as a sufficient border to separate the house/play areas from the lake. Maybe I should take them out and shock them to see if it is a sufficient border, eh?
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