Fence Frustration Finally Finished

How's that for alliteration!!

As you know, we've had quite a bit of irritation regarding our solar electric fence. It worked but not like we thought it should. If you can grab a hold of the line and barely feel a slight shock, then something isn't right.

We tried everything we could think of, like letting it charge in the sun for several days, adding grounding rods, and constantly checking the entire line to make sure no branches were touching it or it was sagging, or whatever!

This was at the early part of our fence fixing fiasco. Dakota is wondering what and why Hubby is there.

More fixing.
Saggy lines.
Tightened up lines. This is the corner at the top of the horse/bull pens.
Looking down the line towards the house from the above corner.

We finally went back to the Big R store in Redmond to look for an electric fence checker. We ended up talking to the guy that sold us the unit. He introduced himself as Skip and was in fact wearing a work shirt with a "Skip" name tag. Skip let us borrow his checker. Turns out the unit we had was not operating at full capacity. In other words NO WONDER IT WASN'T WORKING RIGHT!!

So back we went to Redmond with the defective fence charger. Inside the store we asked for Skip. They paged Joe to respond, and Skip showed up. ??? Anyway, we swapped out the charger, went back home and hooked it up. It seemed to be working. The only way we had to check it was to either grab a hold of the line (no one wanted to do that) or put a screwdriver from the fence T-post to the wire and look for a spark.

It did make a spark, much bigger than with the other charger. Now how to make sure it would hold the bull. I was really hesitant to let him out of the little pen because I didn't want him to just charge underneath the line again like it was nothing.

The brochure the charger came with suggested that the animals needed to be "trained" to respect the fence. It recommended offering food on the opposite side and when the animal tried to reach through the fence to get the food it would get zapped and thereby learn.

I wasn't sure that was going to work so I did it a little differently. Don't hate me. Don't call PETA on me. I took a handful of hay and held it on the opposite side from the bull just inches away from the hot wire. If you've ever fed a cow you know they will reach out with their tongue. So, yes, Dakota reached out with his tongue, basically wrapping it around the hot wire. And yes, he did get a zap!

Then after a few minutes I went to the other fence and did the same thing. He ended up doing the same thing and got zapped again. I'm sorry to say, but it made me happy. Dakota went and sulked in his shed. I waited a few minutes and then put a small pile of hay on the ground.

I went outside the fence and puttered around so I could keep an eye on him and see what happened next. After several minutes Dakota came back and slowly wandered towards the hay pile. Eventually he started pushing under the wire to reach the hay. Now I was disheartened again because I could clearly see his forehead was touching the hot wire but he was still reaching for the hay.

Just about the same time his tongue reached the hay pile the hot wire must have pushed through his forehead hair and touched his skin because he suddenly jumped back. I took that as a good sign.

I knew I was going to have to do this sooner or later so I went ahead and opened one side of his little pen, giving him access to the entire pen, which is more or less 1/2 acre.

That was two days ago. I am so happy to report he apparently has not tried to crawl under the fence again. He is still in his own pen, on his own side.

I do believe he's finally learned to respect the fence.

Rock On

Today we redid the rock border along the house part of the driveway.

This is the area where my car got stuck on the rocks. We took out the big rocks, filled the edge with smaller rocks, then outlined the driveway area to the big gate in the fence.

My idea for this area will be to fill it along the fence line with lavenders and cold-hardy roses. I'll have to wait until spring, whenever that is. But I think it will look nice. I'm looking forward to being able to plant.

I've been thinking maybe I need to change the name of our farm to "Little by Little". Or not.

Mini Cheesecake

As promised I have the recipe now for the mini cheesecake I made earlier. I didn't make a bunch of pictures this time, just a few of the finished product.

Mini Cheesecake

1 C graham cracker crumbs

3 T melted butter

2 T sugar

1 8 oz pkg softened cream cheese

1/4 C sugar

1 egg

1/2 C sour cream

zest of 1 orange

juice of 1 orange

Preheat oven to 350°.

Mix crumbs with butter and 2 T sugar. Press into botom and sides of 2 4" springform pans. Place in fridge while you make cheese mixture.

Mix cream cheese with 1/4 C sugar until light and fluffy. Add egg, sour cream, zest, and juice. Mix well. Divide between the springform pans.

Bake in oven for more or less 60 minutes. Don't let the top get too dark. Note: the cakes will puff up in the oven and then collapse as they cool. Let cool (preferably covered, overnight in the fridge).

Use your imagination to fill and serve. The first one I made had fresh fruit and whipped cream. This one I used frozen blueberries and strawberries and cooked them down with sugar, then added some gelatin. I added too much gelatin but the cake part was still good.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Cookie recipe here. Icing recipe here.

Grading

Yesterday we decided it was time to grade the driveway. When we bought the tractor we also bought a grader. The tractor came with a backhoe attached so yesterday we had to figure out how to detach the backhoe, attach a "3 point" system and then hook up the grader to that.

The dealership told us it would take about 10 minutes to do that. Well, the first time it did take a little longer but I can see how now that we've done it, the next time will be much quicker.

So we got it all hooked up and Hubby took off down the road.

He took several passes.
After all, there is a learning curve here.
Break time!
Too much fun!

Wallpaper Done!

I got the rest of the wallpaper up today!

It looks pretty good in these pictures. Better than real life. ;-)

I actually had plenty of wallpaper. I didn't have to use any leftover half rolls so each strip on the wall is a complete strip. That was something I was a little worried about. And I also had just enough wallpaper paste, another thing I was concerned about. In fact, I was so sure I would need more paste when my husband went to the local hardware store today for something else I asked him to pick up another container of paste. Looks like I may be doing some paper mache now! (Just kidding.)

So all I have to do now is touch up and clean up and this room will be ready to use.

Pony Problems

We had been planning to go for a little drive today but when I fed this morning Flora was foaming and drooling at the mouth. My immediate thought was that she ate something noxious. She dug into her breakfast so I wasn't too concerned.

A couple hours later we were getting ready to leave and I went up to check on her. She was still drooling (but not foamy) and now her neck was slightly extended and she was holding her mouth open and her tongue was kind of hanging out. Now I was concerned!

I checked on-line and it sounded like she had something stuck in her throat, or she was choking. It sounds worse than it is. Apparently in horses it's not as serious as it would be in humans or cattle.

So I put a call in to the vet. An hour later no one had called back so I called again. The office person got the vet on the phone and he was unable to respond. So they contacted the other vet who was in the field and he called me back after a while.

He listened to me describe the symptoms and assured me it would not be life threatening and in fact often resolves itself. He wouldn't be able to come out until about 3pm (which was 2 hours from then). He said if it didn't resolve itself, then he would come out.

Sure enough, she was still drooling and seemed uncomfortable. The vet showed up and started an examination. Flora was being uncooperative so she got a little relaxing shot. Upon initial examination the vet determined that she probably just needed her teeth floated, which he did. Then he had me hold her tongue out to the side while he looked a little closer.

And it's a good thing he did. He found a large ulceration on the bottom of her tongue. Then he found a small twig or thick weed or something wedged in-between some back teeth. It was sticking out in such a way that it was the likely culprit of the ulceration. He actually had to get some pliers to pull the thing out.

I am happy to report at this time that at feeding time Flora seemed much better already, and she was not drooling at all.

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Side note:

I haven't done any more wallpapering yet, but the two rows are still up and don't have any lumps or bubbles!