Electric Fencing: DANGER 10,000 VOLTS

Well once again I got hit by my own electric fence, this time while "gapping" it to test the potential on the line (a rough estimate of how many volts are on the wire judged by the length of the spark it throws). I got hit while throwing the disconnect, and for the instant the line was hot it hurt worse than the time I touched one leg of a 480 at work (that's 277 volts AC)!
Here is a brief video of a half-inch spark drawn across the disconnect switch. Enjoy what it LOOKS like (hopefully you never get to find out what it FEELS like)!

Home Ag Update: The corn is up!

Finally about "one third to half" of my corn has sprouted! So far the first two planting days' worth of corn is up, with the rest about a week behind. And at least so far it looks like I have a very low mortality rate (as in by far and away most of the seeds have sprouted)!
Here is a picture of once of the further along seedlings, as well as a few of it's neighbors. However as you can see some weeds have sprung up, and though I had hoped not to need to I may wind up having to spray the corn patch with 2,4-D (I can't use Round-Up, as only about a third of the corn is guaranteed to be Round-Up Ready). This won't kill the grass, but it will take care of the broadleafs. We'll see, if the corn grows fast enough I won't have to spray at all...
That's all I have for now. More when the results are more dramatic.

Home Ag: Field Planted!

Well two weeks after starting all of my corn (both field and sweet) are finally planted!
The three dark areas are the areas I planted today (I decided to "water-in" those areas).
So far I have planted a "mixed bag" of modern field corn and two varieties of sweet corn (Golden Cross Bantam hybrid, a classic sweet corn and Ruby Queen hybrid, a red-kernel sweet corn). As for the space left in the middle, I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I'll have to make a trip to a greenhouse before long...

Home Ag: Fixin' the Cistern!

NOTICE: Second post today!

I feel very fortunate that my house came with a cistern; a now all-but forgotten source of fresh water. A cistern is a large underground storage space for water, which is generally supplied by rain collected by the house's roof.
My cistern is located on the north wall of my house, and has no clear design feature for filling it. I plan on using aboveground courrogated drain pipe to move rainwater from the eaves through the access hatch visable in the picture, and to use a sump pump to actually use this water to irrigate my crops.
In order to do this I need to run both a water pipe and an extension cord down the raised hole on the right side of the picture, and fish them out through the access hatch to attach them to a pump. Most likely this will be easier said than done, but in the end will be well worth it, as this is a source of FREE water for irrigating both my garden and my lawn!

As of right now the only function that my cistern serves is to provide a home for a single frog! Currently the cistern holds about two inches of water, and as you can see the wreckage of the old wellhead pump are still in there. Once I have a pump in there and connect the eaves to it, the frog will have to move out... Sorry, but I now officially need the stored rain water...

Home Ag: More Garden / Mini-Field pictures

Well this time it's more or less just pictures, since I've done some more work to the garden and want to show it off...











First picture: The garden (this year it's just a corn field) viewed from the road, with electric fencing installed and the first three rows planted. For this field I used "poly-wire" for the electric fence. Poly-wire is, in this case, comprised of three strands of PVC-encased fiberglass rope interwoven with three aluminum wires. The advantages of poly-wire, especially here, are enhanced visability to both people and animals (the "poly" in this wire is bright yellow and black) and ease of handling, which will be very important this fall when I will have to coil the "wire" back up before I cut the dead cornstalks down with my scythe.



















Second picture: The (most likely) temporary hookup for the garden fence, with three pullets and the rooster making a cameo. The gate handle is made out of nonconductive rubber, and a strand of highly visable poly-wire connects the chicken fence to the garden fence. Eventually I will probaly replace this system with a buried cable with a disconnect switch, but for the moment, at least, this system should work just fine.

That's all I have for now. More after my corn starts to spring up...

Home Ag: Tilling complete!

Before

After

Finally, the tilling is done... Needless to say I'm very tired right now, so this post will be short.
The tilling did NOT go easily. The sod was very thick, well developed and so on. It took everything I had to keep the tiller under control, even on the final (supposedly easy) pass.
Before the last two passes I added 20 pounds of 12-12-12 fertilizer to further improve the already good soil (corn is a very intensive crop after all). After those last two passes I was too tired to continue, though it could've used it.
Anyways that's all for now. Below is a picture of my Uncle Marv's tiller that I used, and my spreader. I'll post again once I have my seeds planted and they sprout.

Is this... Corn?

I finally aquired my corn seed today, and all I have to say is it doesn't look the way I expected! Of course the corn seeds are much smaller than the harvest kernels, but the color is what threw me. I knew that the seed was likely to be coated (generally with fungucide and/or starter fertilizer) but I hadn't expected the color.
The reason the seed is multicolored is because the bag contains several different brands of corn. This is a very good thing, as diversity helps avoid problems. THis is the seed that was left over when the farmer cleaned out his planter this year; it is all high-end seed that should yield very nicely!
Now I just need to till under the jungle and actually put some of this into the ground...