Fencing

We've been working our a##es off lately and this last weekend was no different. After getting our fence posts in last week, we needed to get on to installing the electric wire, gates, solar engergizer, and ground rods. If you are not aware, our weather has not been great, with several inches of snow having fallen, most of it still on the ground. This has made working outdoors difficult & messy. It's not quite cold enough to be frozen solid, but it's not quite warm enough to melt everything either. It's just ugly.
All the "stuff" for our fences arrived safely last week, thanks to John and Lesley at Ferris Fencing in Courtenay, BC.

The heavy coils of HotCote wire and the solar energizer arrived directly from the manufacturer in the USA with the remainder coming from Ferris on the Island.
We quickly realized that we needed some way to unwind the wire in a way that enabled us to feed it through all the insulators (900+) that Carol had installed on the posts, without binding up or kinking. After some Googling we discovered the device we needed was a "spinning jenny".

Of course nobody in town had one in stock but Tom at The Horse Barn ordered one up and promised it would be here late on Saturday. We spent Saturday putting in some of the many gates we would need and installing a few of the ratcheting tensioners that mount on the terminal posts. I went into town, picked up the spinning jenny, brought it home and assembled it ready for use on Sunday morning. Sunday was foggy and snowing when we first went out but it didn't take long for the fog to burn off revealing beautiful skies and even a little sunshine.

 The spinning jenny worked great and we quickly became electric fence wire stringing experts. Good thing, as we have 2 miles of the stuff to install! By the end of the day (and the end of the light) we had one of the paddocks almost completely fenced in with only a couple of short sections still needing wire. We have yet to brace the terminal and corner posts so could only apply very light tension to hold everything together. The bracing rails will be here on Wednesday so that job can be completed and the fence brought up to full tension. And so it goes...

I've included a couple of other shots to show off our "Muskoka" wood rack that we keep in the house. As you can see, Ben loves laying in front of the fire!

The other image shows Carol preparing a meal on our wood stove. She's become very good at this great energy conserving method of cooking. We have the stove going anyway to heat the house so this was just a no-brainer. BTW, it was a very tasty beef stew! Mmmmmmmm

Snow!? No wait, we're not ready for winter yet!!

It's hard to believe, but we woke up to 2" of snow yesterday (Saturday). Wasn't it just a few weeks ago that we were in the middle of some beautiful summer weather? I guess that's life up here in the high country.
On the way back from Lea's last night, there was a big fir tree blown down across Campbell Range Road, about 1/2 km from our driveway. We decided that we would get up early the next morning and go buck it up with the chainsaw and bring it back home to split for firewood. After getting over the shock of the ground being covered with the white stuff, we headed out at 8:30am to do just that. Of course, by that time some good samaritan had already chopped up the top of the tree that was laying across the road leaving most of it for us. We took both the truck and the Bobcat ATV as we expected to get quite a haul of firewood. We were right. We left the site with the pickup almost filled level in the back. We thought that rather than waste the empty ATV, we would stop on the way through the crown land on our driveway and find another downed tree to cut up. We didn't have to look for long so only 40 minutes later, we had both the truck and the Bobcat full to the max.
Last year we used the deck to mount the splitter on when doing the firewood. Seeing as the deck is now finished with railings and a vinyl covering, we have built a small splitting station next to our wood shed. It is very convenient in that location and Carol has been keeping busy splitting all the logs that I bring back with the ATV. We have the woodshed full and then some, because we know from last year that we will need to have the equivalent of 3 to 4 "wood sheds" of firewood to get us through the cold winter months. That work is still ongoing.
One job that is complete is the fence posts. John, from Frolek Fencing brought his amazing skidsteer vibratory post pounder up to our place on Wednesday evening and by noon on Friday, he was done! Over 300 fence posts were installed, giving us 4 large paddocks, a round pen, and a smaller "diet" pen. This would enable us to have cattle on our property as we have the last couple of summers, and keep the house safe and give us lots of room for the two horses.

Some of our 300 fence posts!

We will be using a solar powered energizer to power the 3 strands of HotCote wire that will be installed on those posts. Each post will receive 3 plastic insulators to keep the wire from shorting to ground once energized. It will give any animal that touches it, a healthy jolt (like a static shock you get when running around on the carpet with your nylon socks on!). They quickly learn to give the fences some respect which results in less wear and tear on both the fences and the horses!
We should have all the wire and hardware tomorrow. It is being shipped to us directly from the States by our supplier. We've already managed to install some of the insulators but with more than 900 required, we still have many left to go.

Speaking of horses, Carol and Whisky are still getting together with Ray at Dreamscape Ranch every Wednesday afternoon. He is doing great! Apparently, he is a quick learner as Carol is now able to steer him around and back him up with the reins. For now, of course, Ray is still there with a lead rope on him in case Whisky gets annoyed with Carol on his back, but so far, all is going well.

Whisky changes everything!

In my last post I mentioned that we were getting a new addition to our family, Whisky, the little rescue horse. He is doing very well at Dreamscape Ranch, loving all the attention that Lea, Sara and the girls are giving him - along with all that good food! Lea estimates that he has gained 50 lbs since his arrival just a few weeks ago! He is looking much healthier and happier. The farrier (Shelley) has trimmed his feet, the vet (Jennifer) came up and gelded him (I'll leave it up to you to Google "gelded" if you're not sure what that means!) and removed a small growth from his thigh, Lea gave him his de-worming medicine, and Carol has been up working him in the round pen a few times. He is much improved and has bonded nicely with Mystery, his corral mate who will be accompanying him up to Gull Lake Ranch.

He seems very smart and learns quickly. So much so, that Lea and Carol decided to bring their favourite horse trainer, Ray Scott, up for some lessons with the little guy. Ray put him in the round pen and after a brief episode running, bucking and generally being a baby horse, Whisky settled down and went to work. He did well and even allowed Carol to mount and sit in the saddle while Ray walked him around the pen. It was all very exciting. Carol was a little nervous at first, but trusted that Ray would know if Whisky was ready for that big step. Apparently, Ray was right (as usual!) and rider and horse had an uneventful first ride together.

We had planned on owning horses "one day", but with the arrival of Whisky, that day is today. That means that all those jobs that needed doing next year to prepare our place for keeping horses, have to be done right now. We need fencing, corrals, gates, hay, feed, water, and shelter for Mystery and Whisky to be able to winter up at Gull Lake Ranch. We have decided on electric fencing as this will be much less expensive than traditional post and rail fencing. Arguably, it's also better for the horses as they tend to get tangled up in just about anything. The shock from the electric fencing keeps the horses safe as they tend to avoid getting too close to the fence itself. After asking around and shopping for fence vendors we have chosen Ferris Fencing on Vancouver Island to supply the fence hardware. We are already in the process of having all the fence posts installed by John Frolek of Frolek Fencing. Jim and Val Kershaw were kind enough to deliver 150 hay bales up to our place last weekend. We found some plans online for horse shelters, or loafing sheds as they are known. We will be building one using left over material from our house build. Eventually, we will dig a trench for a water line to service the paddocks, but for this winter it will be a "bucket brigade" job hopefully using the ATV to haul water in containers to the horses. Grain and supplements will be prepared in the basement/barn as we have come to refer to it lately. This gives us a warm place (thanks to the new heaters!) to perform this chore, but is 100 yards from where the horses will be so time will tell if this works out. Some friends have donated or lent us enough blankets, halters, and lead ropes to get us started. Lea has volunteered to bring the two horses up in her trailer once we have the fences in place. Lesley at Ferris Fencing thinks we should have everything we need by the end of next week so as long as John manages to get all the posts in by then, we should be good to go by the end of October. That should be just in time for the snow to arrive! I guess that finishing the siding will have to wait for now.
Hmmmm, better get cracking on the firewood supply, too. Where did the summer go?!