I had two solar charged lights put on a fence line to illuminate the passageway between two paddocks. One light placed at each end…motion detector activated. This is a fifty-plus metre section (in the dark) that we walk to get from the house to the barn. The rest of the 100-plus metres has some lighting. Well, great plan, one tiny flaw: the manufacturer recommends three days of sunlight before turning on the units. They were installed December 22. Six days later we were still without sunshine. The electrician said, “I’m thinking that there’s a bit of sun even on the cloudy days. Perhaps after a week you can turn them on.”
The week came to an end and I didn’t activate the lights. We hadn’t seen a shadow in seven days. Day eight, clouds. Day nine, SUN!!!! Yippee! At the end of the day I went to both lights and after kneeling in the snow (the lights are on a fencepost, directed downwards) for many bone-chilling minutes I finally found the switch.
That night I asked Bill how the lights worked. These were his Christmas present…from me. When he first heard what he was getting this year, he rolled his eyes. His response after experiencing the motion detector lights? “They worked.”
Day two of the lights: it was almost dusk and much to my surprise the light closest to the lower barn was on. It seemed to keep on shining, which was odd, because the light is set to be on for ten seconds. Hmmm….Then I saw Pax, the big, black Canadian horse, standing near the gate of his paddock which is near the light and the lower barn. Ah, HA! Pax was my light-activator! Must make a mental note: bring Pax out of the paddock and into the barn BEFORE he uses up all of that light’s solar power.
