Tips on Electric Fencing

My childhood was different from a lot of peoples. Of course when you're growing up you think everything is normal, and it's only when you look back that you see it wasn't, but I think even at the time I knew it wasn't like everyone's.

There was a lot of "jobs" involved, we were forever helping dad on the farm. I can remember being picked up in the carpark of school and dad throwing our overalls and wellies out to us (my brother and I, along with my sister when she was old enough), telling us to get changed before we got in. The dog would jump all over us and we'd then go off to manage some of our sheep or some other job that needed our attention. 

Seems like a lifetime ago that we had the sheep here. Part of me misses it, but then a big part of me likes staying sane...

Dad would plan the jobs around what help he had, every job with the sheep was easier with one of us helping, this could be drenching them or sorting them, but more often than not it was was doing something with the electric fencing. 

All of our land was rented, and most had questionable fencing. Our land was fields dotted about the place that dad had managed to rent from different people, every time we moved the sheep it was with a stock box, and before we could let them out, we'd walk the perimeter and see how bad the fences were. 

A field I used to rent. I'd love to go round and visit all the fields dad used to rent and get pictures one day.

Electric fences became our first line of defence. This is also my very early memories of driving (very young), dad would sit the Landrover in low box (1st gear) and I'd steer it along the field at walking pace. He would walk behind and take the fence posts off the trailer, counting his paces to make sure they were spaced evenly. 

Then we'd each get a reel of wire and walk along the posts he had just laid out. The reel would be held on a fence post so it could unravel easily, dad would walk behind and clip each one into a slot on the post.

Then with an old car battery dad would power it all up, and we'd go quiet waiting for the rhymic "click, click, click..." to show it was on. Dad would always try to get one of us to touch it, saying we needed to test it properly, but even holding a piece of grass on the fence it would send a shock down your arm. 

We learnt a lot doing the fencing, but a few tips - 

The sheep had to fear the fence, if they got through it once, without it kicking them, then chances were they'd try again, it made us really good at changing the batteries (before the days of solar chargers) as the last thing you wanted was the sheep thinking it's not on. 

The fences worked better near another barrier, so a electric fence alongside a hedge would always work better than one cutting a field in half. 

You made sure it was clear under the fence when you put it up. Chances are the sheep would keep it clear afterwards, but was worth cutting where the fence was going to go with a strimmer (brushcutter) or at least driving the tractor wheel to flatten the grass. If grass could touch it then it would often short the circuit and not work properly. 

You took care when you wrapped the fence up. Rushing the packing up would cost so much time when it came to putting the fence out again. We used to make sure the reels were wrapped tight and the posts all laid the same way. You got a nice pace as you walked and wrapped, but as the wire got older I would hold a handful of grass in my hand to stop the stray wire from cutting me. 

You didn't leave it up longer than it had to be. It was easy to wrap it straight away when the grass was short, but if the grass grew long around it, you'd have a game trying to remove it. 

You left the fence unit out of sight - we only ever had one lot go missing, but they took the time to wrap it all up and take the posts as well. We used to chain the expensive unit to an old wheel or something tricky to move. Probably not so effective now with cordless angle grinders, but I feel you should make it as tricky as possible for them. 

I dread to think how many times we put up fences! Worst was as we got into our teens and dad would make my brother and me go and do it on our own. We then lived in fear of the sheep getting through one of our fences and knew where the blame would land! 

Do you use electric fencing much? 

Do you have any tips for using it?

Was it a part of your childhood like mine? 

Saving Rain Water On The Homestead

I said to my wife the other day that it feels like it's been raining for 40 days and 40 nights now. So, at times like this it's sometimes hard to think about the possible dry times ahead and storing water for use around the homestead. But as always it's best to be prepared, especially with some of the summer we've had lately. 

We have a number of ways of collecting water. Most are cobbled together from a time when we were on a very tight budget. I have always dreamed of installing some much larger water tanks which would mean I could dispense with some of the maintenance that goes with having linked storage barrels. The one lot are filled from the roof of my workshop, although I could easily add gutter and more barrels to the other side as well. 

A bit of green growth around the fittings - tell tale signs it's leaking. 

Last summer was case in point of this, where I had both sets of linked barrels leak. The barrels in question are old olive barrels, bought cheap. I try to make sure I never have more than 4 barrels linked up in a series. This is then is about a thousand litres, The row of 6 (in the picture above) is linked as two lots of three, with a filling pipe placed at the top to link them up. That way if one leaks it won't drain the whole lot so we're not left without water when we need it most. 

The problem from these barrels comes from the fact that they are very curved on the inside, so any fitting I use is a bit of a bodge, using silicone. The other problem comes from the top of the barrels not accepting my broad shoulders, so every time we've added some of these to the homestead, one of the children has had to go inside to hold the spanner to tighten the fitting! 

It's worth fixing these leaks now though, while there is plenty of time for the barrels to fill back up. A job on my list is to empty them all out, clean them and then refit the fittings, possibly replacing a few of the older fittings. 

The one's in the garden, much the same set up, fed off the shed roof. 

The other thing we do is have areas set up for making sure the water is something the animals want to drink! My boy has an area where he cleans the chicken waters each week (scrubs them), and tops them all up with fresh water. I love seeing that he has used this old toy table as a workbench to clean them out. A while ago I added an outdoor hot tap and this has been brilliant for jobs like this. He uses the watering cans to then take and fill up the tubs we use for the chicken's water, knowing how far he can fill them and still be able to carry them using the gauge on the side of the can. When he's done he puts it all away neatly - quite organised really! 

Further down the garden, the water tanks are used to fill up a small plunge tank, this is ideal when watering the garden, and so long as you use a lot of the water it doesn't have time to go green. This will need cleaning out properly before the growing season starts however! The mesh screen I made stops any animals or birds falling in when it's not in use. 

The other job I like to do every couple of years is to change the "O" rings on all the hosepipe fittings. It's a quick job, and can save many litres of water from slipping away, but it's also a job that's really easy to ignore. 

We have experimented with many things over the years to save moving so much water about. Having barrels next to the pens works on the short term, but we find them very hard to keep clean, and without lids there is always the risk something will fall in. 

We tend to only fill these when we go on holiday now, to make looking after the chickens easier for whoever we rope in to do the task! 

I'd love to have more water stored here on the homestead, and it's something I need to put some serious thought in to improving in the coming years. More potable water that we can drink as well would be great (or better ways to filter it), and some proper water storage tanks for that would be incredible when we save the money for it. 

How do you store water for use on the smallholding or garden? 

How many litres do you think you have stored when it's all filled up?

What maintenance jobs are you doing over winter in relation to water storage?

Latest Woodcarving Magazine Article

I think I've been in the last 25 issues or so of woodcarving magazine now - time really does just slip by! 

I got to do the opening to the magazine in the latest issue, a part I always love doing. I got to include the bit about medieval carpentry with my boy and a few lovely pictures from the weekend. 

This issue also features one of my favourite articles I've written for the magazine, the carved axe cover. Hopefully people will like it!

Always nice to see your name in print! 

How To Make A Carved Sliding Axe Cover - Video

A follow on from my other post a few days back. The carved axe cover for my son. 

I've managed to put a video together showing how I carved it. I've left it  little longer than some videos as I wanted to show as much of the carving as possible. 

Give it a watch and let me know what you think! 

Extra Mason Jar Storage

 Another project for another magazine article! This time some extra storage for mason jars. 

I've been planning to make this since I made the door for the pantry. I built the door strong enough to take it.