Power play.

The light works!

Today was a good day!  I really feel like I got over a large hurdle in the last few days working on the farm.  Getting power to the machine shop was a big project and took me almost seven days of work to get it all done.  I crawled under the bridge and installed conduit and two junction boxes.  I had Sarah help me by guiding the wire into one box while I pulled to the other box.  Brian came out this morning to mow the lawn and chew the fat.  We had this discussion about home improvement projects.  He was telling me about burning up a drill on his last project.  I broke one of my battery Makita drills trying to get holes through the pressure treated boards under the bridge.  There is a reason I have a spare drill and impact hammer.  

Our first triplets of the year. 

While I was attempting to finish the power our sheep started to have more babies.  I was pointing the new babies out to Brian when he spotted triplets on the hillside.  I only saw two and told him twins.  Annmarie went out into the field and he was correct.  We have live triplets and they are all doing well and momma is nursing and paying attention to all three.  The little white and brown one is a girl so we will be keeping her.  This ram is throwing nice healthy babies and the colors are amazing.  Those triplets are bigger than some of our twins last year.

I got all the wiring done and then flipped the breaker.  I walked out to the machine shop and turned on the light, it works!!  I was amazed.  The next big test was to measure the voltage at the outlet to see how much drop there was with all the distance.  I could not get a reading, I remembered to reset the GFI outlet and still could not get a reading, but the light works!  So I trudged back to the house blaming the outlet, it was a used outlet that I had written a note to myself on the box, "may work".  Half way to the house it occurred to me that I should look at my voltmeter and see if it was setup right, the selector switch was right but I had used the meter to check continuity last so I had to unplug one of the probes and put it in a different hole on the voltmeter, a whopping 118.9 V.  Pretty dang close to 120, that I am betting it is good enough.  Most electrical items will work on a small range of voltage as it is not consistent around the country.  We like to think it is but it isn't.  The next big test will be tonight when it gets dark, will our old walkway lights work?  They have been out of commission for five years and I did not change out the lightbulbs.

I had to wear my outside slippers all day today as the top of my right foot is still very swollen and sore where I connected to the ram's ribs with the top of my booted foot.  My foot still hurts a lot, but he is totally unfazed.  Today he did not bum rush either one of us.  Maybe he is learning, or else we are.  

Another single

Probable right broken foot. Courtesy of the ram

The light really works in the dark!

We came back from the movie and I had left the machine shop light on so we could see if it is enough light to get hay and feed.  It is plenty of light for that simple task!  I wouldn't do brain surgery but for getting hay it is perfect.
Both of our walkway lights work also!  It was amazing to come home in the dark and not have to use our cell phones to get down the concrete stairs to our bridge.  After five years of rest they still have some lumens left.  The next big thing is to get the three guy wire anchors bolted into the machine shop roof so we can get the tower installed.  Once that is done, its high speed internet time!!

Annmarie and Sarah moved the momma and babies into the baby area.  We want to keep them separate until they are tagged and banded.  Annmarie made a tracking program for our iPhones so we can instantly update it with any babies and their mothers.  It is very handy, much better than the paper notes I used to do.