Farm Woes

For the past few weeks we haven't had any electricty to the barn or yurt. No electricty means no electric fence. To remedy that problem, Keith hook five extension cords together, plugged into our first lamp post (which still had power) going out to the barn. That gave us just enough power for the fences, but not anything else. When Richard & Arlene came out that had to use battery power & candle power. . .

At least this didn't happen in the dead of winter.

To make matters difficult, Bill our electrician had no clue as to the source of the problem.



At the same time that we were out of power, the water to the barn went kaput. We had at least two leaks. Keith fixed the first one, but the second one was the big one and requires him to dig in the goat pen. We believe that the cow knocked the frost- free pump handle around too much making the connection under ground come apart.

This is where the Farm Chore came in. We needed to move the water tank out so Keith can get at the source of the connection and to get the tank closer to the well so I could use hoses to fill the tank.



In the meantime, Bill got hold of someone who had connections to a special tool that can detect where the electric break is underground, without having to dig the whole trench up trying to find the break. They came out Thursday evening and sure enough found 2 breaks.

The first one, look like it was a bad wire to begin with. Bill cut it so he can put a splice where the bad section is.

The second break looks like a gopher was the cause of the damage. While digging the section, Keith found a gopher tunnel, and when he came to the wires, he saw that one section had been gnawed. They think that the bad wire cause the gnawed wire to burn and then blow up.

Or something like that, I didn't get it completely, but that's the gist.

Bill didn't cut these wires, this is what they found.



My theory is that it was really a weasel.

When he gnawed on the wire there was just enough electricty to surge through his body creating "Super Weasel"!

A weasel who laughs at Rabbit Wire!

A weasel who is three times as large as the average ermine.

If you happen to look out at night you may see him crossing the field because he now glows with his new found powers!



Anyways it looks like our woes will be repaired sometime next week.