We found out this week that electric fencing isn't always easy. Actually, when a problem comes up it can be a real pain. Wednesday night I stopped by the farm on my way to take Morgan to church. When I got there I had cows in the driveway.

My first thought: 'great, another spot of barbed wire that needs to be fixed'. My second thought: 'how the heck do I get these cows back in the pasture myself' (and I am already late getting Morgan to church).

So I let Eric know the cows were out and he had to come straight to the farm from work (he wasn't real happy, and neither was I). So long story short, I got back from dropping Morgan off and Eric and Brian(friend down the street) had all the cows back in (thank goodness they slobber over grain). We now proceeded to find the problem in the fence and came to realize that the electric is not even on.


Since we just got finished with about 2 weeks of rain we didn't have a chance to trim fence line. So we thought maybe it is the grass shorting out the fence. So we gasses up that dreaded trimmer and fought to get it started and Eric trimmed the first pasture, and still no juice in the line. Then we walked the fence again to check for problems and still couldn't find any. So I unhooked the wires and checked the solar charger and it is working fine and throwing 4,000 volts. I changed the jumper wire, just in case that was the problem, nope, not that either.

Now it is getting late and is now dark, so we decide to head home and I would have to check it again in the morning (hoping the cows don't get out again).

Fast forward to the next morning. I am at the farm early for a meeting about getting the septic started. I decided to bring another charger over, just in case the solar was depleted by a short or something. I get it all hooked up, fully expecting the fence meter to jump into the green and everything to be fine. No luck, in the red 'check fence'.

So once again I walked the fence, and this time I found that the extra gate we made to let the goats onto the creek bank had slipped and the wire was touching the metal post. Aa ha!! Finally I found something to fix that made sense. I cut the whole thing off(to save time) and went to check the fence again.

Finally we have a charge, not much, only about 1,000 volts, but it was working. So I left it connected to the battery charger so the solar could charge up again (just in case). Hopefully when I go to check it today it will be fine and all the cows will be INSIDE the fences.