Getting electricity out to the barn was interesting. We took bids from 3 electricians. All of them told us that our main electrical panel in the house would need to be replaced. This was partly due to the fact that there wasn't space to add another breaker. The other reason was that, with the breaker box model we had, the house electrical wires would melt before the circuit would trip. That might be why we've never had a breaker trip in the nearly 4.5 years we've been in this house. Apparently our house was a fire waiting to happen. I'm told it's all better now, though.
I've spent the last week moving critter pens around. The east wall of the new barn is on the edge of my horse "holding pen"--where I keep my horses so that they don't turn my tiny pastures into mud pits in inclement weather.
When we started this project, I had to move the horse pen over to make room for the construction. That meant there was no room for the goat pen, so the goats ended up getting moved to the garden/orchard for the summer. (btw--It was kind of nice not worrying about gardening this year!) At that time, this year's babies were still small enough to squeeze through the squares of the cattle panels, so I double fenced the pen to keep them from stripping the bark off our apple trees.
The borders of the horse's new pen are somewhat temporary. Stable Boy wants a "decorative" wood type fence on the part of the pen that borders the yard (that will probably happen next summer) and the horses will have access to go under the overhang once the barn is finished.
Moving the goat pen back meant taking down the temporary horse pen, so the horses spent the week turning the front pasture into mudville.
All of the gates were closed and latched and the fence appeared intact, so I wasn't sure what had happened to Piper. Valentine kept looking down the street, though, so I grabbed a halter and went down to my neighbor's and there she was, saying "hi" to their horses.
In the daylight, I was able to solve the mystery of the missing horse. A couple weeks ago we somehow lost electricity to our little shed. We think one of our dirt moving helpers accidently cut through the underground wire that brought power out to the little barn. It wasn't that big of a deal, because we had already planned to upgrade the electricity in the little barn and had even run the new wire over, it just wasn't a priority yet.
Two of the strands of our pasture fence are normally electrified. The energizer for the fence is in the little barn, so no power meant the electric fence had no electricity. I wasn't too worried about it, because my horses have never messed with the fence, even when we've forgotten to plug it back in after riding. Yesterday, however, Piper was apparently pushing under the bottom line of fencing (which is made of a stretchy plastic) to reach the grass on the other side, and with no electric shock to deter her, managed to push her way all the way under and out.
The new horse pen was finished before the sun set last night. I didn't want another 5:15 am wake up call.