Country Living at It's Best!

Well my dears, I have been hard at it working on this electric fence for the past few days.  We (the hubs and I) worked so hard on it Monday!  We were bound and determined to have it up and running by supper!  And we would have too, if we had put it up right in the first place!  But no, that's NOT THE HOLLIBAUGH WAY!  No sir!  Sure isn't!  Noooooo We got to make it the hardest thing yet in 22 years of togetherness!  We got to call the divorce lawyers in on this one!  Yep get those damn papers drawn up and signed by 5pm!  Wait you say!  Monday was Valentine's Day!  The day of love and romance!  Why would you want to divorce on that day and over an electric fence????

Allow me to explain........

It all started when the boy left this demon dog with us, this houdini dog, this escape artist that can open all doors, pick any lock and get off all chains no matter how tight to make them!    So after many 2am chases down Hwy 17 in my PJ's and the Hubs in his whitey tighties we decided to put up an electric fence.  Something to drink a glass of wine and watch the critters freak over.  You know, country living at it's best.

So the Hubs and I loaded up the Tomato car and headed out to Lowes....good thing it's just across the way from us, this is going to come in handy!  We get enough wire to do an acre of pasture, a hot box, metal stakes, insulators and some bright pink flagging just for the heck of it!  The Hubs doesn't want anyone stumbling into the wire.  I look forward to hearing the screams when some stupid idiot comes running thru the yard in the middle of the night!  lol

We unload out purchases and proceed to read the instructions.  First he reads them, then I do.  Then I call Daddy!  Yes I did.  He gave me a rough idea of how to get it done over the phone.  I hung up the phone and told the Hubs.  We're on our own dear, we've been abandoned.  It all started out nice enough but by the time we got the first strand finished the Hubs was ready to call it quits for the day!  Wow!  He really has spent too much time at his present job!  Too many breaks later, we finally get it all up and ready to try it out.  Hubs flips the switch and lets the demon dog loose only to watch him BREAK THRU the electric fence with it ON FULL BLAST!!!  Never looked back!  Just bounced in three leaps across front yard headed towards the highway.......we just stood there, our jaws dropped to the ground.......he stops and looks back as if to say "Thanks for letting me go crazy folks" and off he goes again.   Hours and I do mean hours later, he returns and the Hubs puts him back on the chain.  Back to square one we go!

So we lick our wounds and try to figure out how he is getting thru without feeling the BURN of the electric current.  We rig it with extra wire, put the pink flagging so he will know where it is and try again.  Once again he just laughs at us!  I swear he rolled in that dirt not because he wanted to but because he was laughing at us! And when you chase after him, he just runs the other direction!  When you call his name he looks at you as if you grew horns.  He will let you get within two feet of him and off he runs!  Makes you want to KILL HIM!

Finally he comes back and knocks on the front door.  Oh yeah, he knocks on the front door when he wants inside just like a human!  Funny I know, but he can open doors too.  He hasn't figured out yet how to pull the door towards him but give him time.......

So this morning I got up bright and early and found the fence down in several places.  Apparently something ran thru it last night....Oh yeah, I did have to run down the highway last night in my PJ's again.  I almost forgot that.  It's getting to where I think I do a lot of it in my sleep, it happens so often.....  Anywho!  I walked the line, putting it back in rights.  Got it back like it should look and called Daddy once again.

I was so happy to see my Daddy pull up in my yard today!  I knew he would tell me what I was doing wrong!  After a quick check of everything and a few pointers, I found out what I did wrong can be fixed easily in the morning.  Got to get every branch and blade of grass off the line and tighten it up in a few places.  Should be good to go!  Daddy asked me why I bought an 8 foot ground rod and I told him that's what the instructions said.  He asked me how deep in the ground did I have it.  3 feet I replied.  He smiled and said "Well that should put a charge in his butt once you fix where it's been grounding out."  Daddy's parting words were very encouraging......  Brings an evil smile to my face.

And with that being said my dears, I'll let you know when he hits the line, if you don't hear him first!