I am happy to report that Lucy is doing just fine. She even laid an egg. I did not check it to see if it was fried though. LOL The hotwire is around the goat pasture not the chicken coop. I had asked the question because I was wondering if the hotwire was safe for them. I am supposed to be getting a peacock and some guinea hens this spring but now I am wondering if the goats hotwire is going to be a problem for them. If so then I will not even bother. I have so many wasps around the property that I figured guineas would be an "organic" solution. Thanks fot the advice though. I sure was worried about Lucy today!

Howdy, ladies and gents! Well, here's an update on one of the Jades that was frozen December 5th. As you can see, the top limb ("doomed" I called it in a previous post) has nearly been shed. I'm hoping that this will signal a turning point, although I know we're not out of the woods yet. I've resisted the urge to fiddle and worry the dying limb, as I want the callus to form completely. Freeze-pruned by Mother Nature - and, as they say, Mother knows best....

jpw, it may be cynical, but it's realistic. I bet I've seen every one of these excuses on craigslist or in newspaper ads or on signs in the neighborhood; people who work in rescue probably do get cynical & burned-out, much as social workers get cynical & burned-out, & for the same reasons. I my own self once personally spoke with a woman who said she was going to start her own rescue, & she even had someone lined up to provide a maternity home for pregnant dogs & cat s, because....she didn't believe in abortion. & as for: "Press 10 if your relative has died and you don't want to care for their elderly dog because it doesn't fit your lifestyle."... I once was in line at the grocery store when a woman's cell phone rang & she blithely rattled off something like the following: "Human Services? yes, this is Mrs. Whatsis. I was calling to get my mother enrolled in Medicaid. She has to be enrolled in Medicaid before the nursing home will take her. We sold her house & she's staying with us at present, but we just can't give her the time she needs." then, with a touch of pride, "We have *five* children." oh. so neither you (fit-looking woman probably in her forties) nor any of your *five* children can take care of Granny?.. The only thing that gave me comfort was that her equally fit-looking daughter, who looked to be in her late teens, was standing by her side, absorbing every word, maybe storing it for future use when this woman got old.

jimmy- Usually, if you have two whites and two blacks, it's because the receptacle is in the middle of the circuit run and one pair is incoming power and the other pair passes the power on to the next receptacle. You don't have to know which pair is which: the whites both go to the white side of the receptacle and the blacks go to the black side (and there is a ground wire you attach to the receptacle's grounding screw and then pigtail to the grounds from the two cables). There is also the possibility that both sets are incoming power to a split receptacle, so when you are replacing these you need to match what you had before. If the tabs that connect the upper and lower are broken off, then its a two circuit receptacle. This is generally done so that one of the plugins is always on, and the other one has been run through a switch so you can control a lamp from the switched plugin. Is that clear? Jimmy...one other thing. It's good you're asking these questions, rather than guessing, but it's also pretty clear that your knowledge of electrical wiring is so limited that you could unknowingly create a dangerous situation. Do yourself a favor and get a good book like "Wiring Simplified" by Richter (at almost any home center) or, my favorite, "Wiring a House" by Cauldwell. It will increase your ability to tackle wiring safely and understand what you're doing and why.