Adventures in Animal Husbandry (or wifery in this case)

It's 4:30 a.m. and the phone rings.  Unavailable number?  Who is calling me at 4:30 in the morning?  It could only be Jay, right?  So, of course, I answer.  It's the security company informing that they have had a non-emergency alarm on my system.  As I hang up the phone I hear the rain falling in buckets on the roof and I realize what has happened.  I get up, wander to the kitchen to inspect the security system keypad, and sure enough, all the little lights are black.  It has no power.  Just a side note here, just because it is not lit up and has no power, does not mean it's not armed.  I open the garage door and the alarm unexpectedly and loudly screams in my ear.  I fumble like a blind person to find the right code to turn it off.  Now, not only am I fully awake, but I also need clean underwear.  I unplug the power cord going out to the chicken house, and then pitter patter in my little bare feet around the cars to the far side of the garage and reset the GFCI receptacle, and just like that, power is restored to the alarm system.  Now, I have to restore power to the chicken house so they don't get cold, but I have to discern why the power cord is tripping the GFCI.  Come to think about it, if the power is tripping off, I hope my little feathered friends have not been electrocuted.  I slip Jay's green rubber rain coat over my nightgown and then top off the ensemble by pulling on my knee high, black rubber farm boots.  I am stunning.  I slosh into the backyard where the rain is coming down in torrents.  I live in Idaho, it's a desert, it never rains like this, let alone in January. As I hop the fence to the chicken run I see the problem.  I just can't imagine why the power would trip off when the cord connection is only sitting in six inches of water.  This situation would require a bit more of a solution than just putting duct tape around the connection.  I head back in the house and now Frankie is awake and wanting to go outside.  He has not yet realized it is raining and I know him, he will not go to the bathroom if he's getting rained on.  So now I am in the backyard, in my nightgown, green rubber rain coat, and knee high black rubber farm boots, following an 8 in long, 2 in high spud around the yard holding an umbrella over his head so he will poop.  And I wonder why the neighbors are afraid of me.  Frankie, being the good boy that he is, did his business quickly and ran for the house.  Now, one problem solved, on to the next.  I determined I would probably need a slightly less casual attire, so I traded the nightgown for a sweatshirt and some jeans and added a baseball cap to hide the scary hair.  I realized that there was another receptacle I could use on the back of the house that if tripped, would not effect my security system.  But, it would require a longer extension cord.  Now, remember it is only 5 a.m.    I would have to figure something out.  There was a longer extension cord being used to plug our trailer in over at Kate's house.  The trailer didn't need a long extension cord because the receptacle was close, so I would be doing some cord swapping.  I sloshed back out into the backyard and wound up the existing cord and hopped in the truck and drove the 1/4 mile to Kate's house.  There I wound up the much longer cord attached to our trailer and replaced it with the sort of long cord from the chicken house.  Yes, it is still raining buckets.  Now, back to my house to string the new cord from the new receptacle out to the chicken house.  It still wasn't long enough to reach completely inside the chicken house and the connection would still be exposed to the weather.  As I stood in water up to my calves and pondered my dilemma, I realized that the redneck fence of wooden pallets I had around the run to keep the dogs out was perfect!  I strung the two cords through the pallets and made the connection a good three feet off the ground.  I then was able to cover it with a tarp that was in place already to, once again, keep the dogs from seeing a tiny opening in the redneck pallet fence.  This would keep the rain off the connection.  I finished my creation and connected the two cords and, hurray!, my babies had heat once again.  I know, I know, the animal farm was my choice.  Without them, I would have been sleeping peacefully at 4:30 in the morning instead of tromping around in the yard like some kind of swamp monster, scaring the neighbors.  But, sleep is for the weak, and sanity is overrated.  So I'll just smile at my temporary success against the elements while my rubber boots and raincoat are drying in the garage, and sit in front of the fireplace eating my scrambled eggs made from the freshest eggs from my own little pets.  For now, all is right on the Shaw Family Farm.