Betsie had been crossing the wire and cutting up the weeds in my flower beds last weekend. She also mowed eratically in the front yard. And the worst part, she crossed the wire and mowed the neighbor’s yard! I couldn’t figure out what was going on! I also was about to go away for a few days. So I left her turned off.

Today I got home and tried putting her in the front yard. She mowed a few feet then stopped, blinked No Signal, backed up, continued forward, repeat. That No Signal made me think something was really up with the wire. I walked around it and found a few spots where it was touching metal and fixed those. I put her in the back yard. She seemed fine there, except for occaisionally, No Signal.

I decided to stop and think. The last time I had her working fine was the day before that guy came and mowed my field down to normal lawn level. Maybe he hit the wire. However, on the same day, I rearranged the wire to cover the side yard. So, two changes.

I decided to make a sketch. I drew the house, fence, and yard. I started drawing the wire from Betsie’s house. It runs out to the front, in front of the garage, along th front of the house, along the side of the house to the trees. Then I left a small gap between the other wire so she could pass through there… Along the back deck, along the other side of the house.. And… Back to the charging station. Oops… That can’t be right. That would mean that I have two unconnected wires. One inside the other, and no power going to the outside perimeter! And that is exactly what I had.

Doh! So I went out to the side yard and redirected the wire to make a u-turn along the neighbors yard to circle the front. It had done that originally… But I switched it somehow.

Now Betsie is mowing just fine. Maybe Kerry was right about engineers causing problems. If it wasn’t a holiday weekend I would have emailed him for help.

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