Pink Fox: its Raining...IN MY HOUSE! :/

[pinkfox]

Well, 8:55am and im just sitting down to "breakfast" Goats milk yogurt, peach and raspberry smoothie with whey protein added...

so far today...
brought the goats up to the back yard (easy peasy untill they saw the dogs then panic set in but got them situated in the rabbit/duck area and they are currently "Mowing" the weeds the ducks and geese havent touched...yay benefit lol.)
fed everyone outside, came in, fed everyone inside then got dressed an headed back out.
got 7 T-Posts pounded in, and the welded wire fence that used to be the goat pen, is now between me and the neighbor.

i think thats quite an acomplishment all before 9 am lol.

didnt sleep well last night again, lots of tossing and turning and waking up randomly...2nd night in a row, HATE that.

is it possible to have poisen Ivy WITHOUT a rash...for some reason last might my ankle started itching like the blazes! theres no bug bites, no rash, no markings no nothing...but during the night i managed to scratch it up pretty good.
got up at one point and put some anti itch stuff on it and it seemed to help but man now its itchign again and stinging...
other than the scratch marks form me itching it in my sleep, theres not even a hint at anything that woudl be causing it to itch like that...

Jasper seems to be doing ok this morning, he hasnt eaten any kibble but he had NO problems momming some chicken that i dropped when i was getting stuff out of the fridge this morning....he ran around outside, not as enthusiastically as usual, but not far off either.

so yeah.
just finnishing my smoothie then its back outside again. got to decide which end i want to start at and then go from there. hoping runing the wire wont take long.
Once i get the bottom line on ill go around with the weed wacker and trim up anything growing close, then run the rest of the wires. itll be 2 attatched to the fencing and then 4 lines through the back and 1 side of the pen.
so fingers crossed for a smooth ride on the rest of it. the only reason i see this taking more than a few hours is 1: getting the spacing right on the lines...2: the spool is deceptivly heavy and 3: the potential to need to do a little more weed wacking to be sure the bottom line isnt going to catch some dry grass and light my backyard on fire lol.

wish me luck.

 

[Wannabefree]

That's not poison ivy sister! We had the same issue last week and got to looking and tiny TINY, like size of a half grain of salt, ticks were all over DH, AFTER he had just showered, so be careful, and double and triple check. They looked like dust particles. I got about 40 or 50 off him after he had cleaned up.

 

[pinkfox]

nope, not even "dust" theres no redness ect...the itching has gone completly, but where i scratched is tender...owies *pout*

oh well, sucking it up, i probably touched something that didnt agree with me, lol. or its just in my head.

good news...
the "big" part of the fencing job is done! *WOOT*
and by big i mean the single line along the welded wire fence...because the welded wire isnt under tension, its wavy, this means clipping the wire along all the t-posts holding the fence, and then going back over and adding insulators everywhere the wire was less than 1/2" from the welded wire...obviously if the hot line touches the fence it could cause issues like grounding it so it doesnt work, or arcing...whihc id rather not do. so insome spots theres insulators every 6" lol.
my fingers are a little tender right now from squishing the welded wire fence together everywhere wanted an insulator. 2" gal, 1 1/2" insulator lol.

so that should eb the hard part, so im taking a drink break. checking the radar (dont want to be out there messing with highly conductive wire if theres a t-storm a commin...lol) and then potty break and right back out. im on a mission to get this finnished today because the goats have decided the duck house is aj ungle gym and im pretty sure there going to fall through the roof if there not carefull LOL.

im hoping the rest will go fairly quickly since now its just a case of running from t-post to t-post and dropping in step ins as needed.

ETA: 1:30 and time for lunch.
3 lines of wire in...gates done...
last tep now is to go along the enitre line and pop in step ins and nail in insulators (ill be using some of the existing trees as posts

then tighten the lines...this fence isnt truly going to be "under tension" but i added line tightners so i can take up the last remaining slack afte the posts and insulators are all in...this also means as time goes on if i notice the fence staritng to sag i can just give the tightners a quick turn and tada, problem solved.

once everythings posted and tightend ill go through with my pruning sheres and the weed wacker and just get the spots that need tidying up...shouldnt be alot of work, and hopefully another 2 hours or so i should have anelectric fence spanning about 1/2 an acre for them to stand around yelling "maaaaaaa" in lol.

probably would have gone quicker if tweedle dee and tweedle DUMB hadnt used the duck house roof as a spring board to vault over the fence so they could come help me LOL. that being said, if i could get most peoples dogs to walk so nicely at heal off leash wed all be so lucky lol. theyd chomp on some brush here and id go a little further and if i got out of sight theyd give me a Maaaa? and id give them a "over here" and theyd come running.
there going to be in for a BIG suprise though when the fence gets turned on...
hopefully it wont take them long to get the idea.

well now its time for lunch, gourmet grilled cheese (grilled cheese with chicken and bbq sauce ) and some grapes and a glass of iced tea!

then back out to finish everything up.

 

[pinkfox]

well 3:53 and its almost ready!

just need to plug it in and test.
then ill spend some time with the goats in the field and see if they "get the point" and assuming they do...they can stay out "free" for the evening in their new field!

but first a drink, and then fresh ice for the bunnies...
and after electric fence 101 class for th goats im going to come in and have a long COOL shower (and pick what im sure must be 60 billion ticks off me lol. I sorayed down with 40% deet and ive still found a bunch on me (not bitten but crawling...YICK*

 

[SSDreamin]

We had a mini adventure with our fence today - I shut it off yesterday to do some stuff, and forgot to turn it back on Today, DS came racing in, to tell me the bull was wandering around, OUTSIDE the fence! Thankfully, I'd been bucket training him, so he went right back in

 

[pinkfox]

so, everyhtings hooked up...
and NOTHING...

the fence charger is working, took both lines off the bots, took my tester to it, it has output...
so i alked the enitre fencline 4 times...i cannot find a single spot where the fence is touching ANYTHING that could be grounding it...theres no weeds, no brush, i even added extra insulators to the fence line along the welded wire whee it was close than id like...STILL nothing.

2 ground rods, driven 6 ft deep, so i took the hose to them both.
locked the girls in thier house for now...as there was thinder rolling in.
going to do some checking online to see if i gan figure it out...its probbaly just somethign silly...
but im seriousy frustrated right now, my ankle. HURTS from where i scratched it up and its realy angry looking (probably because its been in thick socks and work boots and rubbing all day and i ache and am tired...oh and i have a sun burn . i cant let the girls out unsupervised right now because they can just push under the bottom wire and while they wouldnt go far out back...i would find them maaaing at my door every 5 mins if i tried to leave them out...



any ideas?!

the tester directly n the box, no problems...to the charger itself is working and that means this has got to be a problem with the fence itself either the hot wire isnt good (should be ine its brand new 12g insulated wire)
im wondering if i somehow switched the wire and ive got the hot on the ground and the ground on the hot so ill try switching those and see if that changes anything.
ive checked every post along the line every line is tight not touching eachother, nothing touching the wire and the wire is properly insulated fomr any trees and t-posts so those arnt grounding it out...

Waiting on this little shower to pass (theres a TINY T-cell just south west of me so im wathcing the radar, once that passes should be clear again so ill go and try switching the lines and see if that changes anythign
I dont think i got them mixed up but...hey worth a shot.

any other ideas?

 

[Denim Deb]

These are metal T posts you're using, right? Is there any place where the wire is touching the post?

 

[pinkfox]

nope, that was the first thing i checked, i figure its got to be either the fence itself is grounding out OR the grounding system isnt working right...
theres lots of thunder rumbling right now so im hesitant to go out playing with it lol.
i was told the first grounding rod could be up to 50 ft away form the charger, which it is, the second rod though is about 15ft from that )as opposed to the reccomended 10ft (i couldnt get one in at the 10ft mark as theres a large rock right there)

right now i think ive got to unhook the hot wire from the fence and test that to see if theres any curent going to the fence at all...if not then i think ive got my wires "crossed" and probbaly put my hot to my last groudning rod...if there is power going to the fence though its got to be shorting somewhere...
the energzier is working so its definatly "user error" rather than equiptment malfunction...
and the wire is all brand new and reccomended size so i know its not a case of oops wrong wire...s its got to be one of MY connections somewhere, and im just a little too burnt out to see it lol

 

[Denim Deb]

The first grounding rod should be much closer! I've read as close as possible to no more than 20 ft, and 10 ft or so for the 2nd!

 

[the funny farm6]

i run electric fence and the grounding rod is 4-5 ft from the fence. and we only have 1 rod for 1000 or so feet of wire. and only the same 1 rod when we extend the pen another 600-800 feet and as long as it isnt grownding out on brush or the places where the wire had to be spliced and it lost current at those spots.