Got snow? Wipe your solar panel.

If you woke up to a beautiful scene of pristine, untouched fluffy whiteness covering everything, don’t forget to wipe off the solar panel for your electric fence.

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The morning began with 5″ of powder perched atop every horizontal tree branch and every line of the braided-rope electric fence. The sky was white. Every few minutes, a small gust would blow the snow powder off the branches of the maples and oaks, as if the trees were shaking themselves off, the same way that a dog shakes water off its fur.

By late morning, after the horses had all been fed and watered, the sky had turned unmistakably blue. By early afternoon, puffy white clouds inched their way across a clear blue sky while the softly-padded white ground reflected back the brightness of the sky. The snow made its way under the hems of my cargo jeans and over the top of my winter boots as I plodded around.

Twenty years ago, this scene would have inspired snowboarding. Thankfully, that was just a phase, and now it’s just ponies ponies ponies until I die.

As the sky shifted moods, the ponies continued to munch their hay, barely lifting their heads off the ground. The snow came up to the ponies’ knees but not quite to their hocks.

I try not to feed hay on the ground but when I do … there might be a thick layer of snow on a frozen ground and the hay is located away from any manure or composting piles.

Our solar fence doesn’t have a battery, which means the juice goes straight from the solar panels to the ropes that make up the fence.
In the future, we do plan to modernize this whole solar energy setup so that we can actually store power for the electric fence to operate during overcast days.

In terms of all-in-one solar-powered fencing solutions, we’ve been using this American Farmworks 10-miler fromTractor Supply, which has been holding up pretty well after 5+ years of maintenance-free use. This only powers one portion of the fenceline, though, as our fencing uses two separate sources (solar and electric), to minimize the risks of winter in the frozen Northeast.

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This is just my experience, not a paid advertisement.
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