Electric Fence Completed

I've finally gotten the electric fence installed and operating. It involved:

• Digging a trench from the power pole next to the potting shed to the southern most fence post of the cactus grove. This took time because of the frozen ground. It was a forty-six foot run. 
• Laying 12 gauge wire using a 20 amp breaker in the breaker box to control it.
• Building a wooden box enclosure to protect the Zareba Systems fence charger.
• Driving T stakes into the ground at 60 foot intervals around the cactus area.
• Realizing that I have wood stake insulators, so used them with landscaping stakes to create a temporary perimeter.
• Stringing 2,000 feet of wire on two strands on those stakes.
• Driving ground stakes at 10 foot intervals and connecting an 8 gauge ground wire to them from the fence charger.
• Connecting the 17 gauge wire from the fence to the fence charger.

I was too chicken to touch the wire, but it went live last night. This morning, as I was checking the perimeter of the fence for intrusions, I saw my cat run at high speed away from the fence and take cover under the potting shed. I assume he touched the wire and got a (non-lethal) shock. I'm not trying to kill anything, just deter it from destroying the cactus crop. 

Now that the javelinas are no longer able to destroy the cactus, I did a rough count of current losses. The cold spell has killed around 180 cactus, and that number will likely rise to 200 or even more, which means an approximate loss rate of 40%. 

Whatever survives will likely be that the pad was very healthy and well rooted before the cold spell hit. There will doubtless be more severe freezes, so the loss rate may get quite high. The last survivors will be good, cold tolerant stock to use in the nursery.

I am also researching the subject of electroculture, a body of knowledge that describes various ways to use mild electric and magnetic currents to stimulate plant growth. This is an extension of using pyramids to create and distribute a palliative energy field that generally stimulates plant and animal health.