other things

As I was outside in the warm sun today, I was thinking about all the things I was going to write this evening. And now that it's late at night and I'm sitting here in my pj's with a towel on my head and gloves on my hands to keep my fingers from icing up, I can't remember much of what I wanted to say.

It was a relaxing holiday weekend, pretty much. Mom and I were invited to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with family friends. We've been getting together with them for many years and it's always fun to visit with them! We've all known each other for almost 25 years.

Yesterday, Mom and I went to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. Years and years ago, on a whim after hearing one of their Christmas songs on the radio, I bought the CD for Mom, because she's a total Christmas song nut and I thought it was a pretty cool rendition of Silver Bells. At first it was like "okay, that's different" but it rapidly became a household holiday favorite. I love the story that it tells (admittedly the first few times I listened to it I didn't realize there was a story!). So after years of missing out on the concert she found out about it with enough advance notice to get good seats this year. It was amazing. Awesome. It's like a Christmas rock concert. People were dressed nice, it was a crowd of all ages, and boy did they put on a show. The light show is every bit as important as the vocal performance. If you ever get a chance, GO!

Today I finally got around to finishing the electric fence. I hadn't touched it for months. OMG I'm done!!! The final pasture, which I did in one fell swoop today (oh what I would do for a back massage!) is my arena, which obviously isn't a real arena, it's a pasture, you know, with grass in it. I may regret hot wiring it. Now when I use it as a riding arena, I will make sure to keep a healthy distance from the rail! Getting scraped off on the fence would have a whole new angle to it now. I'll definitely be sure to unhook that section during riding times! :-/

I started another scrim project today. So I have two going on right now, the last two to be done before Christmas (remember they need to ship out in time to be received by then!). I can't show you the one I just started. I'll tell you it's a pendant and it's a dog but I can't show pics. While I don't think the recipient reads this, enough of this person's relatives are prowling around on here that I think I'd best keep it under wraps til after Christmas! I'll be working on the hand-tool portions of that and the knife while eagerly awaiting the arrival of my compressor oil. Usually I like to do the AirGraver stuff first, but... time's a tickin'. :-)

haunted by hot wire

Okay, this hot wire is supposed to bring me some peace, so I don't have to yell at the horses for doing full-body-contact scratching on the poor old pasture fence (totally futile, by the way, yelling at horses from a distance).

So far I've dislocated my thumb (3 weeks ago and it's clearly going to take a LONG time to recover) and sent 8800 volts of electricity running through my body, I could feel it all day and it made my arm smell funny. That was exciting. Several smaller zaps too.

Last night at 4:23 I awoke to the sound of the fence charger clicking fast and LOUD. What the heck? This new one is pretty quiet. The first one was too strong, and soooo loud. This one's not bad. In the daytime you'd have to stand near it to hear it, and it's a pleasant little "bink! bink! bink!" sound with a blinking green light. I can hear it at night if I listen for it, gently ticking in the shed, but it's not so loud that it fills every nook and cranny of silence in my bedroom at night like the other one did. So for it to wake me up, that's unusual. Groan. Did I really want to get dressed and go walk the fence line? No. I put a pillow over my head. I could still hear it. I put two pillows over my head. I could still hear it. I shut the window. I couldn't hear it, but I was now obsessed with it. Was something shorting it out? What could it be? Eventually I fell asleep.

So this morning the first thing I did was checked the charger box, which was softly binking away like always, didn't seem any faster or louder than usual. Weird. Did I dream the whole thing?

I never did find a short, but I did find this. What the heck?!?!:

Hmm, that's a problem. That's a significant problem:

Okay, let's make a list of everything that had access to that particular fence post last night:

-the cats
-the ducks
-the wild turkeys, and other assorted wild birds
-one broody bantam hen
-Gwen

Now, not to point the finger of blame or anything, but I think it doesn't take too much thinking to know who did this, not to name names or anything, ahem:

(not sure why there's a red glow in this pic either).

This section of fence tests at 3400 volts. All I can say is I HOPE THAT HURT!!!

Ah, fence update, since I'm done for the morning:

2856 feet to be hot wired
1112 feet currently hot
insulators installed on remaining 1744 feet (yay done pounding insulators!!!! Just need to run wire now!)

Edit 4:12pm, Huh, interesting. Apparently the loud clicking last night was NOT the fence charger, it was water dripping from the leaky gutter on the barn (water? from where?) onto a metal gate that I propped there yesterday morning. Mom heard it too, and went out to look last night. I wondered why the gate had was on the ground this morning! Come to think of it I did hear a loud noise last night, I just dismissed in my half-asleep state as a horse kicking the fence or something. Ironic that something really was wrong with the hot wire this morning. Go figure.

it's a major award!

That's "A Christmas Story" reference in the title, I'm not being sarcastic. (Why do I feel the overwhelming need to explain that?)

It was so hard to get up this morning. I was up super late last night working really hard blogging. Eventually, I went to bed. I sleep with my window wide open, and a mountain of blankets on my bed so I get all bundled up if it's cold (I kinda like my room a little chilly). My window (it's about 18 inches above my head if I'm in bed) looks out on the garden/orchard. It got pretty windy last night, enough that it made my door (on the other side of the room) start to rattle. Ugh, I can't stand that. But I was in that glorious almost-asleep state of being mushy and soft, when thoughts are starting to get weird and spiral off into dreams. I dragged a pillow on my head at a snail's pace but it didn't drown out the rattling door. I reached up and slid the window closed. Instantly I missed the breeze. Sigh, I would just have to get up. I pulled a dirty sock out of the laundry hamper and wadded it under the door so the door would stop moving, crawled back into bed and was instantly asleep. I have been having the weirdest dreams lately, I think maybe someone spiked my toothpaste or something. I don't generally remember them lately, but wake up several times in the middle of the night thinking "that was very weird."

Anyway, I pried myself out of bed this morning and spent some time working on the fence. Here's the official update:

2856 total feet to be hot wired
1112 feet currently hot wired
608 feet worth of insulators installed today (not yet wired)

I stopped because my stomach told me it was time for lunch. It was right.

Then it was off to Sacramento to pick up some frames at the shop. One is for Draft Horse Classic, one will be going to a scrimshaw show on the east coast next week.

I had a little time to work on scrim this afternoon, but it was interrupted by not being able to keep my eyeballs open, so I took a 45 minute nap on the couch. Fed the critters, had a small early dinner, and headed off to Sacramento again...

Tonight was the award reception for the State Fair Fine Art Show. Jan went with me.

My award is bigger than my art!:

But yes, it's really my art:

Of course, we had to drop by Fur & Feathers too:

Hey who's that little cutie on that poster that was designed by an awesome scrimshaw artist a few years ago?:

Awwwww:

Now, I have spent an entire year craving an ice cream sundae at Leatherby's. This was always a tradition after the Avian Bowl competition. Avian Bowl moved to southern CA though, so I was facing a State Fair without Leatherby's, and this just could not happen, I'm pretty sure the universe would come crashing down or something. So I determined that Leatherby's must be part of the evening plans, and thankfully J was game for this.

Ahh, what I look forward to all year, a Rachel's large sundae, peppermint ice cream, hot fudge sauce, whip cream and nuts! Oooooh yeah baby, bring it on!

And here's one of my favorite ways to spend some time in the evening, me + couch + Olin, yay!:

I hope your day was equally exciting! I think I'll call it a night, and I hope to dream of hunky cowboys.

peace in the valley

I finished hot-wiring the front pasture yesterday morning. I think I came in the house around 11am, it was already 95 degrees. Ewww. But a whole pasture is done! Yay! Two more to go though, sigh. I think I will take a break though.

1112 feet hot wired
1744 feet to go (whimper)

So, I'd originally gotten a pretty high powered charger, which was recommended by various people, and it ended up being overkill. Word on the street is that the recommended voltage for horses should be somewhere in the 2000-3000 range. When I only had the corral section up, this one was running at 8800 (which darn near knocked me over when it zapped me). Finishing the front pasture only dropped it down to 7400 at the very end of the line, and along the way accidentally electrified a water trough where the wire passed a few inches from the rubber hose. Um, can you say overkill? (I did fix that, I spliced in some insulated wire).

Anyway, I took it back today and got a less powerful one. With 1112 feet done, it's between 3100 and 3400 depending where I test it. That'll do!

AND, here's the big bonus... I've been having to fall asleep with a pillow over my head to drown out the incessant CLICK CLICK CLICK of the charger out in the shed. Man that thing was loud. This new one, ahhhh, peace at last! A barely audible tick, and a pleasant little green light that pulses to let me know it's working. Ahhhh.

I was out in the hammock tonight watching the sky. It's way too early to see a really good meteor shower though. I told myself I had to see five of them before I could come back in the house. I thought that fifth one would never happen, and Olin kept jumping up on me and biting my toes through the sheet I was hiding under (mosquito protection). There were so many more stars visible when I was little. I can barely see the Milky Way anymore. Sacramento is the ugly orange glow not just on the northern horizon, but the whole northern part of the sky. It's really sad. I remember being out in the middle of the night last year at a friend's ranch in remote northern CA, and being astounded at the stars, like I'd almost forgotten that's how it used to look here. I miss the stars.

If I wake up in the middle of the night I'll get up and look at the meteors, but here's hoping I sleep well tonight. Not only has the clicking been driving me crazy, but the last few nights I've been sleeping without the splint on my thumb, and I wake up every time I move because I'm obsessed about hurting it again! I just get tired of wearing that thing though. It's coming along well. There are times I accidentally move it the wrong way, or accidentally bump it on the wrong spot, and it's fairly mortifying, but as a whole I'm not very aware of it when I've got it taped up. The numbness is annoying, and it's soooo weak. I have very tentatively being doing scrim again, and the problem now isn't so much pain associated with holding things, it's just lack of grasping strength. All in due time, I know, I'm already trying to exercise it to the extent that I can, and I'm sorta half amazed I've done all this fence hooha since then. It's the fine detail work that's harder.

Tomorrow I will finish making jam. And freeze a few more pie fillings. These peaches and nectarines are soooooooo good, it's so sad when they are gone, but when they are all ripe at the same time it's a lot of work!

and what did you do this weekend?

Mine was busy.

I spent yesterday morning working on the fence, of course, because it's just SO much fun (no, that's not sarcastic or anything). To the person who said I could do the whole property in a day or two, wrong! Maybe in decent weather. We did have some low 80s last week, it was fabulous. Today it was 100, so there's a limited window of time during the day when it's reasonable to be outdoors.

Anyway, after wrestling with the fence for a few hours, Mom and I canned 12 quarts of peaches. Oh my gosh that's a lot of boiling, it took hours. And there is still soooo much fruit out there. I might do one more batch of jam, I'll freeze some pie fillings, I'm eating tons of them, and giving them away to anyone who will take some.

I spent the evening at an anniversary party for some family friends, and had a really nice time chatting with some of the old 4-H crowd who I had not talked to for a very long time.

And then, despite my intentions (ha ha) to go to bed early, I was up until the wee hours looking at plane tickets, rental cars, etc, and trying to determine if going to Kansas is really feasible next month. I'm leaning that way, but this is not an easy choice and I think I'll feel a little sad no matter what I decide.

I had a hard time prying myself out of bed this morning, but the prospect of visiting a very cute baby was pretty hard to resist, so off I went with my friend A.C. to spend some time with my brother and sis in law and adorable niece. Unfortunately I'm not really good at holding her right now due to the thumb issue, so she didn't find me too entertaining but A.C. was more than willing to compensate for my present lack of baby-picking-up skills. :-)

Had a delicious lunch at Baskin Robbins (no, I don't do this often!) and then headed home. Now, I guess it's a good thing I didn't really have anything specific planned for this afternoon, because I accidentally took a nap. Yeah, pure accident, whoopsie daisy. Sat down on the couch to pet the cat and woke up about two hours later. I felt much better, I must say.

And then of course this evening, more fence time. Bleh. I know you want the official update, so here it is:

2856 total feet will be hot wired
936 feet currently hot wired (but not all turned on yet)
insulators up on an additional 160 feet (not yet wired)

I suspect I will be getting a lowered powered charger. When I finish the front pasture (the 160 feet of insulators) I'll attach everything and put the fence tester on it again, and hopefully not zap myself into the next county. We'll see. I'm not sure who's more scared of it now, me or the horses!

Well, that's all I got. I'm going to try resuming scrimshaw work this week, wish my thumb luck...

today's news

Official word is I did not break my thumb. That's good. I guess this all had to happen so that I could satisfy my morbid curiosity as to how it healed up last time. (Rolls eyes).

I put up all the insulators in the front pasture, going to run wire this weekend. Right now, it's WAY too strong. Like, holy mackerel I got zapped through the fence tester and it was um, wow. I am hoping when the front pasture gets hooked up it'll behave itself, but if not I'm going to return the charger for a less enthusiastic version. I'm so tired of fencing, I just want it to be done so that I can get back to the very delicate work I need to be doing.

I made peach jam today.

I am going to can about 3834957987457 peaches tomorrow. If anyone wants to come over and pick some peaches or nectarines, please tell me.

ZAP!

Ladies and gentlemen, we have hot wire. ;-)

A little bit, anyway. I wired the corral section of the fence today after a friend pounded in a couple t-posts for me (not something I normally have a problem with, just can't grasp the post pounder right now, at least not without significant pain) and started on the pasture insulators but have a looooong way to go. But the corral is done and the horses are both contained in there, which buys me a little time on the pastures (which is good, I'm pretty slow with one thumb). And I turned the corral section on.

The horses met the hot wire.

Shylah, the insatiably curious little dork that she is, walked straight up to it and stuck her nose on it. Galloping, bucking, and farting resulted. She tried it again on another section of fence, and this time made an audible grunt, followed by more galloping, bucking, and farting. My thumb laughed gleefully. I almost felt a tiny bit bad for a second, until I remembered my toils in the sun to fix all the top rails and sagging fence wire.

Gwen eventually wandered over, got about six inches from it, and backed up real fast. She obviously has some experience with this stuff!

So, the official update:
2856 total feet will be hot wired
144 feet currently hot
insulators up on additional 512 feet (not yet hot wired)

With such a short stretch of fence hot, and such a strong charger, I think it's packing a mighty punch right now. Oh and that charger box is loud!!! CLICK. CLICK. CLICK. Ugh. That is going to drive me nuts hearing it at night, I'll have to build some sort of box around it so try to muffle it some.

Thumb is doing better. Still swollen and bruised and it's going to be a while til I have full range of motion and no pain, but I keep it splinted most of the time and it's coming along.

psst, hey buddy, wanna see my x-rays?

Sure you do! I'm posting them whether you want to or not though! These are pics of them, the originals are much nicer looking, my camera kinda washed out some areas. My doctor can't tell if the slight weirdness in the last thumb joint is recent or is leftover damage from when I was 11 years old (my thumb already did stick out funny on the left side of that last joint). Soo.... I have to go see an orthopedic doctor, and I don't yet know if it's broken or not. Dang it! I really hate all this medical stuff.





I spent way too much time sitting around feeling sorry for myself today. But, there are things I could still do, so I need to do them:

-preliminary sketches for pendants
-could probably scrim a small flat piece (can't hold onto the pistol grips yet, it hurts, but I need to do something. No work = no pay = uh oh!)
-make jam! (anyone want peach or nectarine? Let me know!)
-sew
-paint that chicken/dragon thing I dreamed about

Okay, that should all keep me busy. I need to let a few clients know that there's a hitch in my giddyup though for a little while. Sigh.

Wahhh, I want to go riding! :-(

Oh, Shylah was colicky tonight. Great. I walked her for quite some time til she seemed to feel better. She's now confined to the stall + teeny part of the corral so I can more easily keep an eye on her, but not in a place where she can do something dumb like eat insulators. I started her on Sand Clear (just in case), gotta go get more tomorrow.

If it ain't one thing it's another.

owwww

Okay, I'll probably go get an x-ray tomorrow. Grumble grumble. Much improved today, more range of motion, but still a very very small range of motion and it's way swollen, and sorta numb. Sigh.

And of course the weather was great, and I wish I could have been out there working all day. I did get a little fence work in anyway (yes I know I probably shouldn't do that). I'm so stinking slow now with only one functional thumb! I need to find someone to pound in a couple t-posts for me and then I can at least get the corral section wired. I finished all the electrical stuff in the shed, I'm ready to run wire down the fence. Darn it I am just so annoyed that I did this to myself. Arg!

It is impossible for me to put my hair in a ponytail now, that's a crisis. I also can't really hold anything, so scrimshaw has come to a halt for a little while (crap!)

Oh, the horses were seen by Dr. Z today. Gwen needed her teeth done, and has a loose tooth (not loose enough to pull yet). Oh goody. Maybe next year.

Sigh. I'm not a happy camper right now.

a painful setback, and a big dilemma

The setback and the dilemma are totally unrelated, fyi.

First off, fence update:
Today I attached the charger and put up hooks and ran the extension cord over from the other side of the shed. Drilled a hole to run the wires out. Finished the grounding rods to the extent that my brute strength (or lack thereof) will allow, and finished wiring the grounding stuff. Got most of the way done with running the insulated hot wire along the corral fence, but ran out of insulated wire because I'd made a measuring error. Oops, need to go get another roll. I was going to do the first "up and over" for the gate, but realized the caps I'd bought for the pipes were too large (did my brain fall out?) Will need to return those and get another size. Sigh. So I started putting up the insulators on the wood posts in the corral. Got about half of those up, and I had a moment of stupidity, or something, and...

I whacked my left thumb with the hammer. Not the end of my thumb, but the the side of the last joint (the one I broke in 5th grade). I was so stunned I couldn't even think of any bad words to say, so I finished hammering in the nail, took my glove off, and when I saw it I kind of dropped everything and sat down. Um, it looked gross. Instead of being straight, like a normal thumb, it took a funny turn at the joint. Oh my. My immediate reaction was to try bending it, so I did, and it made a lovely crunching sound but at least when I finished with that it was straight again. Aaaaaaack! That's when I started crying, I admit. OMG that hurt. Obviously dislocated.


I iced it, it's wrapped up on a splint now. I've been deeply concerned that I broke it, but at this point I don't think I did. I think I just really did a bad thing to it. If it's worse tomorrow I'll get an x-ray, but I'm really REALLY not wanting to seek medical attention (hey, the vet's coming over tomorrow for the horses, lol!)

This is going to make fence work difficult, and I don't really feel that I can stop. Wires hanging out all over, insulators up but not hot. Sigh. This is not good.

This is also not good because it makes it very hard to hold anything, and that's is my left hand's job for scrimshaw. I can't risk stuff slipping. This is not good!!!! CRAP!!!!! STUPID ME!!!! ARG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So that's that.

In other news, I have a big decision ahead of me. I've been specially invited to take part in an engraving weekend, a meet and greet with some serious high and mighty people. It's not a show, no money to be made, but connections with the best in the world. It's the same weekend as Draft Horse Classic. I LOVE Draft Horse Classic, this would be my 8th year I think. Love that show. But... art sales are not good, it would cost me several hundred to do the show, and there's a fair chance of not making much of that back. Were it not for one big sale last year, that's what would have happened last year, and I think sales are likely to be worse now.

Of course, getting to Kansas would not be free. Air fare, rental car, hotel, meals, etc. But it might be more valuable in the long run. Then again, I'm saving up to do Blade Show next summer.

So I need to decide if I'm going to show at DHC (I still have not heard from them, but was assured of notification soon, and I think it's safe to assume I'd get in) and maybe turn a small profit, or spend a weekend in Kansas and meet some of the most amazing people in the world.

Hmmmmmm.

I think I'll go eat a chocolate cupcake, maybe that will help.

can't really think of a title today

I guess technically what I said about how the last batch of chicks hatched two weekends ago wasn't true. Five more hatched yesterday. They're not mine though, and they'll be going home to their owner in a few days. Cute little buggers though. Hatching is hard work!

Speaking of hard work (yup, you know I'm going to talk about it):

Fence update:
Top rails: done! Gloriously done. Due to fence posts that lean and top boards that are warped, I'm not going to say the fences all make entirely straight lines, but... it's an improvement. I went through a lot of wire, pulled out a lot of screws and nails that were falling out anyway, got a really fabulous farmer's tan (oh goody, she says), and every square inch of me is extremely sore.

Hot wire: got all the stuff today. Also got lots of silly comments from TSC employees ("gee, think you've got enough insulators in there?" "Save some for other people too!") I got two ground rods pounded in 4.5 feet each (they are 6 foot poles). The other was more stubborn, still have another foot to go. Ouch. I am soooo not looking forward to this, but can't wait to be done, and need to be done asap before the horses pop all the new staples out of the fence.

I had a strange moment today. I saw someone at the store who I used to know until he dropped off the planet (Mr. "I'll call you on Friday" who never did). I would have been perfectly happy to say hello, or just wave, but I don't think I've ever seen someone so obviously determined not to make eye contact. Weird. Sometimes I just don't understand people. Something to keep in mind: don't end things awkwardly with someone you're likely to run into again. I KNEW that was going to happen.

I do understand sleep though, so I think I'll go do that.

one-track mind

I get extremely focused on things. I do this with the artwork too, it makes it so I have a hard time working on multiple projects at once, because I get TOTALLY focused on one. I guess that's not a bad thing. Starting new projects is always a bit of a struggle, and then it sorta clicks and I'm in, and when it gets near the end it's seriously all I do and all I think about.

Right now that focus is the fence. It's absurd. I work on it, I think about it, I talk about it, I even dream about it. Really, I dreamed about hot wire last night, and in the dream I figured out where to set up the electric unit without having to try to put the grounding rods into the gravel driveway. Brilliant!

Fence update:
Top Rail: 1452 feet done, 812 feet to go
Hot Wire: Went shopping yesterday, and compared prices at Tractor Supply and the feed store. Can you say Oh My Gosh? Just a little comparison, the very same charger unit... TSC $68, feed store $124. Same brand, same EXACT THING. Insulators 25-pack, TSC $7something, feed store $11something. I know where I'll be buying everything! Doing that on Saturday, trying to finish the top rails tomorrow.

JJ's post made me think maybe I should talk about the things I don't update about much.

Chickens! My last hatch was two weekends ago. I have no idea how many chicks I have. Less than 75 I'd say, but honestly I haven't counted. The colors that hatched are: Black, "Black Red" (Black X BBRed), Brassy Back, Blue Brassy Back, Blue Brassy Splash. Hope there's a few good ones. I'm not even thinking about shows. My how things have changed eh? "We'll see" is about all I can come up with.

Horses! They're super. Shylah isn't thrilled about life in the corral though, but somehow the crappy dead grass in the pasture manages to make her super-fat, so she stays in and gets grass hay and beet pulp. I remind her that some horses live in stalls, and she has a HUGE corral, but she's pretty good with the guilt trip. I even bought her a toy, one of those apple-shaped plastic doohickeys with the edible center part, the kind you hang somewhere. She's pretty much snubbing it. My horse snubbing something edible?! Wow. Maybe in time she'll at least want to destroy the plastic part. (Rolls eyes). I'm looking forward to this cooler weather, can finally do more riding!

Jessie dog. Ups and downs. Week by week, day by day. Two weekends ago I was going to schedule the heartbreaking appointment for the following week, and then she bounced back. Literally, bounced. She's goofy, happy, tries to run around. There are bad days sometimes, but as long as she is happy, it's not time. She's off her medication now. Her attitude seems better, her appetite is so much better, and as for her limping I don't see any change. My goal is just for her to be as happy as comfortable as possible, and when her health issues prevent that, it will be time. For now, she's a happy girl who just doesn't walk very well (not to mention the oldest dog we've ever had, 14.5).

Okay, off to bed, I'm going to try to do 812 feet of fence tomorrow. Yes, to answer one question, it is a sense of accomplishment for sure to be doing this all myself. But I still want a Farm Boy. ;-) (If you haven't seen The Princess Bride, do it! I love that movie!!!)

let's see if this works

First attempt at posting a video:



The fence project is admittedly using up most of my time right now. I'm sore and whiney, and when I finish fencing for the day if my hands and arms don't feel 100% good I'm just not comfortable doing scrimshaw. When one is working on an image that's an inch and a half tall, one can't have anything less than normal dexterity! So I'm not getting a whole lot done on the grips this week. I am sanding down some mammoth ivory pendants though, that requires less precision. Stinky work, I don't enjoy that smell. :-/ Had errands to run and other crapola today too.

Fence update:

Top rails: 1072 feet done, 1192 feet to go (oh what I would do for a massage right now)
Hot wire: going shopping tomorrow, at least for investigational purposes! I've decided on solar, because I think the best place to put the grounding rods is out near the creek, and that's too far from the electrical outlet in the shed. There are still a few areas I'm not sure how to handle, so cross your fingers that some hunky single dude will be at TSC to answer my questions. ;-)

EDIT: okay, now that it's uploaded I can see that the video quality is CRAP. Blogger must compress the heck out of an already compressed video. I'll have to ponder this and see if I can come up with a better solution. I was going to upload it to youtube but they said it would take 45 minutes to upload the original file off the camera. Cripes!

fun with animals!

I cut up this watermelon for dinner the other night, only to find it totally blah tasting. Hmmm, what to do with it....

I think I found some volunteers!




By morning, it was but a mere shell of its former self (yeah, they have skills!). I washed off the ducky dirt... Now what to do with this lovely bowl, hmmmm...

I think I found a volunteer!


Looks like she has some competition though. ;-)


These ducks just crack me up this year, they have so much more personality than any other batch I've raised. :-)

I'm trying to decide whether to attend the State Fair art show reception Thursday August 20th. Anyone want to be my "date"? I use that term very loosely.

Fence project update:
Top rail fixing: 568 feet done, 1696 feet to go (SIGH)
Hot wire: budget approved, need to go shopping! Still working on the logistics.
I can't wait to get it all wired now. I knew the fence was bad, but didn't realize how extremely bad until I started working on it. What a pain. Sigh, where is my Farm Boy? (Bonus points if you just said "As you wish.")

hot wire, part two

Okay, I've had a few questions/suggestions, thank you. Let me try to clarify things a little more as to which areas most need help.

Here's what I posted yesterday, an out-of-scale drawing of where the horses live:

The red pipe fence is fine, I don't think they could damage that if they tried.

Here's a new drawing.

The areas bordered in pink are high priority, that's where they usually live. They always have access to the corrals, and if any of the two far pastures are open, then they also have access to the front pasture. The area bordered in green is middle priority, they don't live there as often as the pink area. The yellow pasture is low priority, they don't live there more than a few months during the year, and that is my riding arena so I think I'd just as soon not have that one be "hot," at least not unless needed.

fence woes

Today I am going to talk about fencing. Not the kind that involves swords. The kind that (at least theoretically) contains livestock. It gives me something to rant about, plus I'm soliciting input from those in the know.

Whoever built the pasture fence here didn't do a very good job. It was in "fair" condition when we moved here, although the original owners had used this awful plastic mesh on the fence. Not only was it a complete eyesore, but it wasn't really all that strong, and when a big horse like Gwen decides to lean on it, she might just pop through on the other side (this happened!). So my brother J, bless his heart, got the horrible job of taking down the plastic stuff and putting up non-climb wire instead. Major improvement, but the fence still has some serious structural problems.

Here's the fence (and a lovely view of the blackberries out by the creek). It's about 5 feet high, it has posts and a top rail, and the rest is the non-climb wire. Sometimes I think it would have made more sense just to do the whole property with hot tape, but the wire does have the advantage of keeping dogs on the proper side of the fence.


Just for comparison, this is the corral fence. It's welded pipe. I love it. I could keep an elephant in this here (not that I have any plans to). I wish they would have fenced the whole place with this welded pipe, but I'm sure it wasn't cheap.

There are several issues that are all coming together to create a situation called "the fence is falling down." One is that the dorks who built the fence did a really stupid job of it. Instead of angling the top of the posts (so that rain would run off) and nailing the top rail to the outside of the post, they actually cut sections out of the top of each post (OMG wouldn't that be a serious pain in the asterisk? Worse than angling the top of each post?) and set the top rail in there, like it's on a little shelf. See that? Bad no no.

Great, so now there's this area on the top of each post where rain water can flow down and puddle and.... you guessed it, rot the posts. They're all rotten, at least the tops. Most are still firmly in the ground, but a few wiggle. So what happens when the post rots? The top rail falls off! And you get a fence line that looks like this:

I'm NOT proud of this, I hate this, this is embarrassing, and I've been working on fixing it (that's obviously a section I have not gotten to) and it's probably going to at least many weeks to do. Sometimes it's basically just the wire that's holding up the fence. Aaack! I can't nail the boards back up, they won't stay put in rotten wood, so I have to drill holes, loop wire around each post, and wire the stupid top rails back up. It's rednecky to say the least, and feels like putting a band-aid on a gushing wound. But, it'll at least buy a few more years. The entire thing seems to be all falling down now. For a while it was just one board here and there, but omg in the last month I swear it's just all gone to heck.

Of course, a major contributing factor is that the darling mares are VERY fond of scratching themselves on the fence. ARG!!! They are both fond of scratching their butts on it (yes, they are wormed consistently, and yes I do take care to clean the gunk out of the udder-area to prevent itchiness, but they do it anyway). Gwen will also lean into the fence at about a 45 degree angle and scratch her entire body along the fence. I about have a heart attack when I see her do that, I can hear the wire stretching and the posts groaning and popping.

So, this brings up the thought of hot wire. It may be all that can save the fence, the horses really need to be kept from leaning on it. Without going out and measuring, I don't know many feet of fence there are. Thousands I'm sure. At different times of year they have access to different pastures. They always have access to the corrals, and sometimes are off pasture entirely. This is a VERY not-to-scale drawing, but this is pretty much the lay of the land. I'm having a hard time figuring out exactly how this could be hot wired, or if it's even doable ($$$). Thoughts about hot wire/hot tape? I want to hear them. Only the wire fence would need it, the red pipe fence is fine.


Sigh.