A disappointing day

If there is one thing I have learned from working on the farm it is that you don’t know what you don’t know. You can plan and plot and run the scenario a dozen or a hundred times in your head, but still find out when you actually go to put it together that there was one little detail you didn’t know enough to consider that wrecks everything.

We started by running the wire we bought through the conduit…

Under the driveway…

And out the box by the barn. This was not terribly difficult, it pulled pretty smoothly, although it required some muscle to get it up out of the end of the conduit.

The next step was to learn how to wire a GFCI outlet.

I don’t have YouTube on my phone, and I don’t have internet out at the shop, so I had to resort to reading the instructions.

Overall, apparently I didn’t do too badly, except that there is an easier way and the ground wire doesn’t need to be looped, it can just be stuck straight it.

And I thought I got the wiring pretty neatly in the box, better than a lot of other outlets I have seen.

Getting the spring-loaded cover on was a pain, but we got it done.

Then the bad news. I texted pictures of it all to an electrician friend… and he told me to take it all out.

Apparently that kind of wire is not rated for outdoors use. So I had to undo an hour of work.

I fell back on taking care of something I actually know how to do. We set up the electric fencer again a few days ago to let the cows and sheep into the hedgerow area on the east end of the farm, while keeping them from the first year fruit bushes and trees. In the process I discovered that the grounding wasn’t adequate. The grounding wire was wrapped directly around the T-post, which was only about 18 inches in the ground. Apparently this wasn’t deep enough because it delivered an electric fence level shock to anyone who touched the post.

So I pounded a 3 foot length of galvanized steel pipe directly into the ground, and attached the wire to that. That should do for a while, until the steel starts to corrode from the combination of electricity and moisture.

At that point we decided to call it a day, and come home. Mommy was making a soup with kielbasa and our German butterball potatoes we harvested last week.

I love their golden yellow color (and the little fingers trying to snag a sample).

And the soup was absolutely delicious, though even better on Monday as leftovers.

Some days are like that. Like my Dad always said, “God has a reason.”