The Electric Fence Fried My Fridge

Seriously.

This is not a cutesy play on words. The electric fence seriously fried my fridge. We have been experiencing a lot of rain as of late. I'm not talking sweet little showers that settle the dust on our road. I'm talking gully washers complete with lightning and thunder that then leave wet holes in the bean field.

Such a storm hit on Monday morning. Our power flickered once, enough to knock out the DirecTV and digital clocks, but no big deal. As the morning progressed and breakfast was being cleaned up, I noticed my freezer thermometer was rising. This does not a happy farm wife make!

I have a pretty crazy love for my fridge. It's a purchase we made when we moved into the farmhouse. Buying it was an act of great dedication. I researched, price compared, and checked Consumer Reports. Then, with savvy execution, we purchased my Stainless Steel, French Door, Bottom Freezer beauty and even bargained for a 5year free service call agreement.

Thank goodness for that agreement, because our rural address does not register in GPS. Therefore, I usually end up giving the poor lost city repairman directions over the phone using such landmarks as telephone towers, cattle lots, and mailboxes.

But I digress. . . anyway, after arranging the repair man's visit (two days later, thanks to our distance from the "big city."), Joe went out to do chores. Our cattle are fenced in by both barbed wire fencing as well as electric fence. The barbed wire fencing is multiple levels of wire hooked together with wooden fence posts. They look tall and ouchy enough to keep the cattle in. However, the electric fence looks a lot less harmful, but the thin metal line packs a powerful charge. Regardless of the fencing, Joe is constantly checking cows, mending fence, and making sure that the bulls don't jump any fences to make any more girlfriends.

When he went to check the cattle that morning, he noticed the transformer box by the lot was fried. After seeing that the electric fence was not working, Joe turned into CSI: Yates City, and did some further investigating. He discovered our outside lights were out, too. AH-HA! His sleuthing led him to deduce that lightning had hit the electric fence, zipped down the line, hit the adjacent transformer, which then blew our power out, thus frying our outside lights, fridge relay cords (whatever those are), caused me living like a true pioneer woman. . . or at least one that has ice in a cooler with milk and Diet Coke at the ready for 48 hours.

This electric fence/fridge episode was a first for me. I have experienced power outages. I have experienced having refridgerator issues. However, I have never had a barbed wire fence be the culprit. How bizarre is that? It made me realize how further intertwined my life is with this farm. Not only do our cattle and grain checks pay for all our bills, but the very fencing keeping in the cattle we sell can cause the milk to go sour, as well as my mood.