Late yesterday afternoon, I went down to give the horses a late lunch and let the ewes back into the fold. I noticed that the henhouse light hadn't come on yet, even though it seemed dark enough for the light sensor to kick in. Obviously not. I flipped the barn light on, got the horse hay served, then went to the tack room to get Chuckie a scoop of kitty kibble and got no response to that light switch. Hmmm. Further checking revealed that the sheep fold and barn aisle lights worked; machine shed lights and the outlet powering the Ram-ada Inn and henhouse lights did not. I walked back to the house to check the breaker boxes, figuring that a breaker tripped, but there was no breaker labeled "Barn" in either of them. Oh yeah; there are breaker boxes down at the barn, the old one in the original structure that predated us, and the one we installed in the attached machine shed when we built it. So I walked back down and checked those; again nothing was tripped. However, I thought I detected a faint 'hot plastic' smell near the old original one, and the edges of the plastic handle of one breaker looked slightly melted. I called Rick and described everything, telling him I thought he'd better make checking it out a priority as soon as he got home. In the meantime, he told me to flip all the breakers in both boxes to "Off," which I did. By this time it was dark, so I did chores with a headlamp.
What Rick discovered when he got home and checked out the situation was chilling. First of all, there is no master switch for the electric line to the barn; it's all hot, all the time. Rick removed the cover of the old breaker box, and there was even more heat damage on the inside. With an insulated screwdriver he managed to disconnect everything, but still had two (separated) hot wires and no caps that would fit them. Supply sources were closed for the day; what to do? I suggested moving horses, sheep, tractor, and horse trailer, or calling a couple neighbors to see if they had caps. The first neighbor had none; the second neighbor did, saying, "'Someone' had me get extras." Yeah; that same 'Someone' kept a near-catastrophic breaker box from sparking a barn fire – for years.
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| the old breaker box is just inside that white door |
It was foggy this morning, and as I gazed down at our barn complex and all that it houses, I thought how easily it could have been shrouded in smoke and flames. That thought has made me slightly breathless all day – and thankful; so very, very thankful.
No need to hide now, Sanson!
The sarcacocca on the north side of the house is perfuming the air:
I've started weaving another rug:
Thanking God, not lucky stars, at . . .
10 comments:
Oh my goodness, thank goodness you caught that!
So glad you went investigating. Its a scary thought to think of flames everywhere. Take a deep breath and be thankful and grateful all over again, like we all are on your behalf.
Scary! So thankful all is safe! While doing morning barn chores discovered milk house heater out, luckily no frozen water pipes. WI Dee
PWaH, yes!
Sue, the thought of the horses and ewes burned alive was the most horrifying part of the imagined devastation. Not sure how I would have survived the PTSD from that.
Donell, so good to hear from you! Thankful for your unfrozen pipes as well.
Phew! What a very scary thing to go through. It's no wonder the whole situation is still sending shivers up and down your spine. I would be in the same state if I were you. Fire is such an awful thing. So, so glad you caught and avoided the danger of it. Hugs to you and all your animals!
Thank you, Mama Pea. The animals, gratefully, have no idea of what they were spared.
Jeanne, I know we aren't delivered from every calamity; sometimes we are given the strength to go THROUGH them, but I am so thankful that this time we (all) were spared.
OMG - so very glad you dodged the bullet on this. It could have been - well, I dn't like to think about what it could have been. On a happier note, that's a nice chevron twill on the loom :-)
Amen! God is Good!
Whew!
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