my wife the cattle woman

[mitch2]

mitch it means there was no ground, lucky you didn't become the ground, would have been a very shocking experience.

I am sorry but I find this very disturbing. You could have been electrocuted.. NEVER EVER use anything electrical (appliances etc.) around water without it being plugged into a ground fault breaker and you of all people should know this. Get hubby to put in a grounded breaker, they are a few hundred dollars, might be expensive, but they will save a life.

That blow dryer should have tripped the breaker the instant it hit the water ,unless I am misreading something..

I would of thought the same thing, wondered why it didn't.

It had the breaker in the cord, and the ext cord was plugged into a ground fault outlet, as that is code on any outdoor outlets I believe.

Clueless why it didn't, but like I said, just the *air out* end was in the water, and it wasn't fully submerged?

Michele

 

[cypressfarms]

I envy Michele and those women that go out and do as much as they do.

My wife owns the land (through inheritance) that I have cattle on right behind the house, but if I asked her to drive the mule to the corral she couldn't find it. Farming is defintely not her "thing". About the most I can get from her is the occasional (once or twice per year) ride with the kinds on the mule to look at the calves. At least the girls and son show farm interest. At least one of them rides out with me every evening to check the cows. Got a laugh last night when My daughters watched me shoot a coon (Racoon) last night. There first reaction (they are 11 and 13) was, Dad you killed that poor coon! That changed pretty quick after my middle daughter rode with me to give the coon to an employee of mine who was exstatic that I had brought it. He's not very well off (money wise) and has two kids to take of by himself.

Can't blame my wife though - she shuffles all three kids around to everything from art class, cheerleading practice, soccer practice, and on and on. The only real time she has for herself is when she takes a bath at night. I, on the other hand have loads of time every time I got out to check the horses/cows.

 

[mobgrazer]

Don't quote me on this but I'll take a shot at it.
Yes it sounds like the plug had a GFCI on it but they don't always work unless what it is plugged into a grounded outlet. Because the ground was frozen it did not have a decent path to ground (this could have been the same thing for the fish tank).
But more or less (the nutshell explanation) they work by measuring how much power goes out the hot and how much comes back through the negative. It can be off by so much then it will trip. Yes you can get shocked off GFCI before it will trip if there is a high resistance on the current leak.


Some days I don't know how my wife keeps up with it all. I get up do the breakfast thing with the kids do some farm work then drive them to school. Then I sped a few hours in the office with my wife doing "paperwork", ordering stuff, and looking at what needs to get done. My mother and father in law will show up with lunch and then it's back to work for an hour or so setting up new padlocks and stuff. My wife takes off to get the kids runs to town twice a week for the youngest and her speech therapy. Depending what's going on I'll cook dinner then it's off to family time. We do a cutting of alfalfa and of one or two of "pasture trash" as we call it; then it gets fun trying to play the weather.

She will work in the garden all day long but she will not get dirty on the farm for nothing. Between her and her mom they do a good job on keeping up with everything else. The 12 and 14 year old loves to get dirty and will help out all the time on the farm work.