Electric coop, 10k to go

Last night after work I got home a little late since I needed to drop off race materials at the running store for early packet pick up today.  After getting changed I immediately let the chickens out so they could get in an hour or two of free ranging time which they have come to love.

My task at hand was getting power to the new shed.  It will be needed for the automatic chicken door I have en route to my house.  In addition power in the shed will be helpful if we want to throw things like a fan or even a web cam inside the structure.

To accomplish this my plan was to tap into the power line I already have buried and run to the small shed.  My low tech method of cutting the ends off of buried extension cord surely is not up to code but has held up fine for the 6 or 7 years it has been in place.

I dug up the connection point at the small shed and wired in the cut end of the new 100 foot cord I bought after work.  A quick test confirmed juice was now flowing to the new shed.  I drilled a small hole in the corner of the floor to get the power inside.  I still need to get the new cord buried which will require a hand edger tool to accomplish.  Basically I make a slit in the ground, rock the tool back and forth and stuff the cord into it.  The grass quickly will create a green stitch over the line I cut.

Before I get to start enjoying my weekend we have a 10K race to time tomorrow morning.  Cindy always helps me out with both pre-race prep as well as whatever I need her to do on race day.  Tomorrow I am having her do something new, set up and run the half way split timing point.  Basically she will be taking one of the timing boxes to the halfway point and set up the equipment. After the last runner crosses the mats she captures the data to a USB drive and brings it back to me.  We aren’t advertising the split as part of the race so if something goes wrong it isn’t the end of the world.

After the race is out of the way we have lots of stuff to keep us busy, lots….