We all know that April showers bring on the May flowers. What do March showers bring on for us ? Slush, ice, bad tempers and missed days of riding. The rain does melt snow efficiently, but so does sun and a light breeze—much preferable. Despite the disappointing weather, I do know spring can’t be too far off when my ancient cat starts darting around the house and riffling up the throw rugs.
A few months ago I purchased a nifty gadget called a fault finder. It’s for finding “leaks” in the fenceline. Electric fence is like a water line.. and every connection and little location of a short is a leak. If you have too many, obviously at the end of the line, your water pressure is going to be low—same with the electric fence. Even the tight properly done connections will leak some voltage. Bad insulators and anything touching the fence will cause a leak. This handy dandy device can find all the leaks. In the process of fooling around with it, I have come to learn the eccentricities of my fence. Even handier, is when I come to a corner or junction from where perhaps 3 or more different fencelines veer, I can immediately determine if I need to walk any of them. If a stretch of fence is healthy, by the visual digital read out, I know—I don’t even have to bother walking up that stretch… it’s working perfectly. Pretty neat ! The last few weeks I have been playing around with it a lot.
Building fence has always been one of my favorite projects. So I read about new technology in the field of tensile fence and I find I have to buy the product and build another fence in order to give it a try. I have a friend whose business is – erecting fence for customers. She is always up on what’s new. We can passionately chat about fence the way some people get together and talk horses. I know--- it’s kinda crazy.
I have all high tension fence, although many believe it to be too risky to use with horses—I have never had an injury due to the tensile fence. The snowbanks that build up heavily over winter cannot seem to destroy it. Huge trees downed by storms (or a misguided chain saw operator) don’t phase the fence either. Cut the tree in half and the fence springs back into place. Building the corners is the most tedious part – if you can use a big tree—that saves time and energy. Once you have your corners established—the fence goes up quickly and nearly effortlessly. And now, they have such wonderful gadgets and tools to make your fence building life so easy…. Well not everyone finds fence as exciting as I do !!!
OYY Hendrix has begun some additional leading lessons up in the indoor. Mom “Reverie” (registered name Zoe’s Day Dream) is tied at the hitchrail along the wall while Hendrix performs his little drill. I made a short video of him during the last session—which of course since I was documenting it on film… he was not as well behaved as usual. His aunt- OYY Dream A Little Dream – seems to think Hendrix belongs to her, so naturally when she spotted him—she began to relentlessly call, run and buck. Very distracting.. she was making enough loud fuss so it seemed as though 40 horses were stampeding out and around the indoor. Hendrix acquired his name because the morning he was born, it was raining hard… and the Jimi Hendrix song- Rainy Day, Dream Away- ran through my mind. Now that he and his Mom are in with the other foals (Iko and Jockomo) all 3 of them run and play like crazy. Their round bale is at the top of the hill, the shed is at the bottom. There is one narrow path trod down in the snow, so they have to travel single file… if the leader stops—they all pile up like a traffic jam. Comical. Here is the link to his short video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q2Fe4AK4NA
A few months ago I purchased a nifty gadget called a fault finder. It’s for finding “leaks” in the fenceline. Electric fence is like a water line.. and every connection and little location of a short is a leak. If you have too many, obviously at the end of the line, your water pressure is going to be low—same with the electric fence. Even the tight properly done connections will leak some voltage. Bad insulators and anything touching the fence will cause a leak. This handy dandy device can find all the leaks. In the process of fooling around with it, I have come to learn the eccentricities of my fence. Even handier, is when I come to a corner or junction from where perhaps 3 or more different fencelines veer, I can immediately determine if I need to walk any of them. If a stretch of fence is healthy, by the visual digital read out, I know—I don’t even have to bother walking up that stretch… it’s working perfectly. Pretty neat ! The last few weeks I have been playing around with it a lot.
Building fence has always been one of my favorite projects. So I read about new technology in the field of tensile fence and I find I have to buy the product and build another fence in order to give it a try. I have a friend whose business is – erecting fence for customers. She is always up on what’s new. We can passionately chat about fence the way some people get together and talk horses. I know--- it’s kinda crazy.
I have all high tension fence, although many believe it to be too risky to use with horses—I have never had an injury due to the tensile fence. The snowbanks that build up heavily over winter cannot seem to destroy it. Huge trees downed by storms (or a misguided chain saw operator) don’t phase the fence either. Cut the tree in half and the fence springs back into place. Building the corners is the most tedious part – if you can use a big tree—that saves time and energy. Once you have your corners established—the fence goes up quickly and nearly effortlessly. And now, they have such wonderful gadgets and tools to make your fence building life so easy…. Well not everyone finds fence as exciting as I do !!!
OYY Hendrix has begun some additional leading lessons up in the indoor. Mom “Reverie” (registered name Zoe’s Day Dream) is tied at the hitchrail along the wall while Hendrix performs his little drill. I made a short video of him during the last session—which of course since I was documenting it on film… he was not as well behaved as usual. His aunt- OYY Dream A Little Dream – seems to think Hendrix belongs to her, so naturally when she spotted him—she began to relentlessly call, run and buck. Very distracting.. she was making enough loud fuss so it seemed as though 40 horses were stampeding out and around the indoor. Hendrix acquired his name because the morning he was born, it was raining hard… and the Jimi Hendrix song- Rainy Day, Dream Away- ran through my mind. Now that he and his Mom are in with the other foals (Iko and Jockomo) all 3 of them run and play like crazy. Their round bale is at the top of the hill, the shed is at the bottom. There is one narrow path trod down in the snow, so they have to travel single file… if the leader stops—they all pile up like a traffic jam. Comical. Here is the link to his short video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q2Fe4AK4NA
Enjoy your day ~
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