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Utility industry technology helps farmers and ranchers build and repair wire fences

Thursday, March 28, 2013 1:43 PM CDT

MAYFIELD VILLAGE, OHIO - Preformed Line Products (Nasdaq: PLPC) today announced the national launch of Ranchmate, a line of measurably superior wire fence construction and repair products. The AgSystems Division of Preformed Line Products (PLP) has applied its proprietary technology - originally developed for the utility industry nearly 70 years ago - to its Ranchmate products for use with high tensile smooth and barbed wire fencing. With Ranchmate, now farmers and ranchers can build and mend fences like utility linesman have built and fixed overhead conductor lines for decades.

Founded in 1947, PLP is known across the globe as a designer, manufacturer and supplier of cable and fiber optics for communications, solar and energy markets. Ranchmate's line of fencing products includes tools that make fencing quick and easy. Ranchmate products are stronger, more durable, safer and measurably superior to anything else on the market. Ranchmate splices and dead ends are made from Class 3 or higher galvanized steel that won't crack or rust and will likely outlast the fence wire they are used to repair. The technology is so simple to use that no tools are required and anyone can easily mend or construct a fence.

As part of PLP's commitment to fostering future generations of agricultural professionals, AgSystems provides support to the National FFA organization. As officially licensed FFA products, every sale of Ranchmate products supports the National FFA organization.

Ranchmate products are available through farm and hardware supply stores nationwide. To learn more about how to use Ranchmate products and experience "Fencing with a Twist ," visit http://www.Ranchmate.com .

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Utility industry technology helps farmers and ranchers build and repair wire fences

A suspect running from police crashed a stolen truck through multiple fences at the Valley Animal Center in Fresno.

The facility is a non-profit no-kill shelter and had been working for months to build a dog park with money raised through fundraisers.

The truck smashed through the heavy main security gate and then drove to the back of the complex where construction on the dog park was ongoing.

Rosie Davenport with the center said, "Our contractor is estimating the damages around $100,000 at this point, which is a big chunk of change for us. We've been fundraising for this dog park for many, many years. It's been a community effort to get it up and running so to have to turn around and tell the community that we've been set back is really, really disappointing for us."

Anyone who would like to contribute to the VAC can call their office at (559) 233-8690 or click the related link to visit their website.

The Valley Animal Center is located at3934 N Hayston Ave, near Ashlan and Highway 168.

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Stolen truck crashes through shelter fences

Bullets allegedly fired at a man in December 2010 tore through fences and a home in the Greystone area of Spryfield, a Nova Scotia Supreme court jury heard Wednesday.

Terry Pipes, an RCMP firearm and tool-mark investigator testifying at Cody Alexander Muises first-degree murder trial, said he found holes consistent with gunshot damage in two fences, as well as the door of a home located near the area where Brandon Hatcher, 20, was fatally shot.

Pipes testified he found another hole below the door sill.

He said the bullet hole in the door was in line with another one in an inside wall and a hot water heater, which was located in yet another room where a bullet was found. Another bullet was discovered in the basement.

Lasers were used to trace the trajectory of the shots to an area near Regan Drive where a dozen bullet casings were found after the shooting.

Such measurements wouldnt lead to the exact spot where the shots were fired because the trajectory could be changed by various factors, but it would be in the area, Pipes said.

Earlier evidence at the trial indicated Muise, 23, and two teens each with a firearm went to the Greystone area of Spryfield the night of Dec. 3 because they thought Hatcher or another person was responsible for a shooting a few hours earlier at a home in Fergusons Cove.

That shooting wounded a man associated with Muise, and happened in a home that one witness said was a place where people in a group from the greater Spryfield area, including Muise, gathered.

Hatcher was associated with a separate group connected to the Greystone area. The two sides were at odds over drug territory, testimony has indicated.

Evidence has also revealed that Muise and his partners hiked through woods until they were behind rocks along Regan Drive, a road behind Hatchers home on Lavender Walk. One of the group had a brief conversation with Hatcher by cellphone, after which Hatcher came outside and fired a shot.

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Bullets found in fences, home in 2010 Spryfield shooting, jury hears

Fences For Fido "My Own Two Hands"
Every day, our volunteers are out there using their own two hands...reaching out, holding, comforting...providing shelter, freedom and love for our fidos. Jo...

By: FencesForFidoVideo

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Fences For Fido "My Own Two Hands" - Video

How appropriate it was that both the movie 42 and the CPCC Theatre production of Fences opened Friday. Theyre opposite sides of the same story: A film about a black baseball player in the 1940s who overcomes bigotry and breaks the color barrier to become a Hall of Famer, and a play about a black baseball player in the pre-World War II era whos beaten down by bigotry and passes old fears and hatreds to his son years later.

The plot of this play may seem foreign to us today: No one now would tell his son to turn down a college football scholarship because he was certain to face racial discrimination. But the subjects of the script are eternal ones: loyalty and betrayal, jeopardized love, parent-child conflicts.

August Wilson made his name with this drama in 1987, winning his only Tony and first of two Pulitzers. (The second went to The Piano Lesson, which CPCC opened three years ago this week. Corlis Hayes directed both here.)

Fences was the third play written in a cycle that finally stretched to 10, depicting experiences of black Americans across each decade of the 20th century. As he often did, Wilson mixed realism and metaphor in Fences: It has room for both earthy harangues and the presence of a holy fool, an ex-soldier named Gabriel who is damaged by a head injury and totes a symbolic trumpet. (Rebecca Primms set reflects that duality: The family lives in a humbly realistic home, while the windows belonging to unseen neighbors reveal Romare Bearden-style collages.)

All the characters revolve around Troy Maxson, whose life in a black Pittsburgh neighborhood has left him uncomfortable in many ways. He broods on his thwarted athletic past, drinks too much, dallies with a mistress who will eventually have a child (his third, all by different mothers.) Troy doesnt know how to help Gabe, his younger brother, and exploits him for the federal compensation he receives.

Now his son, Cory, comes home with a big dream and the offer of that scholarship. Troy explodes, allegedly because hes trying to save his son the pain he endured. But maybe he cant bear to see anyone happy and hopeful while he is not.

Director Hayes draws good performances from actors too seldom seen in this city.

Lillie Ann Odens sturdy Rose finally blossoms after 17 years in Troys stifling shadow. James Lee Walker II makes Gabe not a drifty dreamer (as he can be played) but a vital force determined to storm heavens gates for Troy; Branden Cook, a football player at Butler High until he gave up sports for acting, knows and shows us just what Cory feels.

Calvin Walton finds many colors in the chameleonic Troy: Hes charming and amiable, obtuse and defensive, violent and foolish, even pathetic.

James Earl Jones won a Tony in this part 25 years ago, and I saw him give that towering performance. At its climax, after a character delivered a brutal truth to Troy, Jones cast his eyes toward the balcony as if seeking answers from heaven.

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CPCC Theatre puts up imposing ‘Fences’

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Padres manager Bud Black, general manager Josh Byrnes and assistant G.M. A.J. Hinch spent several minutes throwing baseballs off the new fence in right field at Petco Park on Monday, trying to get a crash course in how they might play starting with the home opener Tuesday against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The big hope, of course, is that more balls will fly over the fence.

From the right-field porch to the right-center gap, the fence was moved in from 402 feet to 391 feet and lowered to just under 8 feet, matching the rest of the outfield wall. In left-center, the fence came in from 402 feet to 390 feet. In a safety-related move, that allowed the visiting team's bullpen to be relocated from right-field foul territory to behind the home bullpen.

The dimensions remain the same down the left-field line (336 feet), right-field line (322) and straightaway center (396).

While Petco is expected to remain a pitchers' park, the Padres hope that players who crush a ball end up with a homer rather than a frustrating long out, the kind that have left sluggers angst-ridden since the downtown ballyard opened in 2004.

''Those balls that you really hit well, you're going to get rewarded for them,'' said Padres third baseman Chase Headley, whose breakout season of 2012 included 31 homers and an NL-best 115 RBIs, as well as his first Silver Slugger and Gold Glove awards. ''And then the confidence you take from those swings - it's tough when you're going really bad and you hit a ball that in most places is a home run or a double and it turns into an out. Confidence for this game is huge. It's frustrating when you do everything right and you don't get rewarded for it.''

Headley won't get his shot at the new fences for a while after breaking his left thumb in spring training.

When he's back, though, he'll try to continue to be aggressive in attacking the big outfield. Without Headley, the Padres went 1-5 with just one homer in their season-opening trip through New York and Colorado.

While the Padres stand to benefit, so too will the visiting team. While many visiting players have hit impressive homers at Petco, they don't have to play 81 games a year there. As much as anything, moving in the fences will give the Padres a psychological boost.

When Petco Park opened in 2004, then-general manager Kevin Towers joked that the Padres had made it Barry Bonds-proof, since the San Francisco Giants slugger always tormented San Diego. Bonds later quipped that the Padres had made Petco Park ''baseball-proof.'' Bonds hit his 755th homer at Petco Park on Aug. 4, 2007, tying Hank Aaron with an opposite-field shot to left-center.

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Padres to break in new fences starting Tuesday

Originally published April 9, 2013 at 8:34 a.m., updated April 9, 2013 at 9:15 a.m.

4/03/2013 World photo/Don Seabrook

Rancher Ross Hurd strings a line of barbed wire to form a pasture for his family's cattle south of Wenatchee Wednesday. Because of the Wenatchee Pack of wolves he has seen at his farm and the recent death of a cow and elk there too, he is moving his herd closer to the family's houses. He says the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department will attach a barrier to the fence to keep the wolves outside the pasture.

WENATCHEE Ross Hurd spent last week building fences on his family's cattle ranch and then brought their cows home from the open range over the weekend.

Normally the roughly 60 head of cattle and crop of spring calves would be roaming the 5,000-acre Hurd ranch south of Wenatchee until early May, when they are rounded up for branding.

Hurd and his brothers are being forced to make some changes after two wolves showed up last month.

The state wants us to put fences around them and keep them there for awhile, so were doing it, Hurd said Friday.

The Hurds have not seen any evidence of the wolves in nearly two weeks. But Ross Hurd said he and wildlife officials expect that they will be back.

The biologist said that once they set their territory they will come back, he said. So were going to be prepared for them. Hopefully well have the cows out of their range in a protected area.

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Wolf-wary ranch family fences in cattle

DEAN KOZANIC

EXPENSIVE BILL: Policy-holders with damage to a fenceline like this liquefaction damage in Queenspark Dr in Christchurchs eastern suburbs, could be liable to an excess of up to $10,000 in Christchurch.

Insurers are imposing tough new $5000 excesses for some structures on residential properties which will save them millions of dollars in the next big natural disaster.

It will mean homeowners will be paying a large chunk of the cost to fix damage to their driveways, paths, fences and swimming pools caused by an earthquake, tsunami, flood or storm.

It is all part of the huge shake-up in residential insurance policies after the Canterbury earthquakes.

The changes, which are being imposed in insurance policies now as they are renewed and for new customers, are pushing risk back on to homeowners.

Insurers want to be rid of the smaller claims to fences, paths, driveways and swimming pools in natural disasters.

The $5000 excess is being introduced throughout New Zealand and only applies in a natural disaster.

However, one insurer, Vero, has singled out Christchurch and has a higher $10,000 excess on the cover for fences, paths, driveways and swimming pools.

Vero introduced the $10,000 excess in late 2011 and is now bringing in the $5000 excess for the rest of New Zealand.

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Fences , pools cop big insurance excesses

Bob Groz #39; Swing for the Fences Contest at the Mariners Open House
Winners of Bob Groz #39; "Big Payoff" had the opportunity to be the first people to hit a home run over the new fences at Safeco Field during the Mariners #39; Ope...

By: mynorthwest

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Bob

It will have been a worry for the authorities that for the second time in two days there were a series of false starts before the starter could get them away in a race over the Aintree fences.

Last night the Aintree stewards had 25 of the 29 jockeys who rode in the race into the stewards room for interviews and banned them all for one day. One thing is for sure, the 40 riders in todays National can expect a stern talking to from stewards after weighing out for the race.

Despite all that, professional jockeys who were getting their first feel of the newly-constructed fences, gave the course a ringing endorsement.

Last years National winning jockey Daryl Jacob, who finished 12th in the Topham on Fistral Beach, said: The fences definitely have a bit of give. They must have, as I should have fallen two or three times.

Another Grand National winner Jason Maguire, who finished fourth yesterday on Dunowen Point, said: I had a nice run round the fences seem brilliant.

Until that last ditch, the 15th fence yesterday, the race had been almost devoid of incident. One jockey was unseated at the eighth and another at the 14th, but the only actual faller until that point had come down at the ninth and a field of 27, headed by Little Josh, had skipped over Bechers Brook, Foinavon, the Canal Turn and Valentines without a problem.

Though there were a few more empty saddles because of the unseated riders, only three of the 29 starters actually fell and one of them, State Benefit, was led back by one of the courses mounted outriders, an innovation for this years meeting.

At the other end of the race on a day when Nicky Henderson horses could do nothing wrong Barry Geraghty and Triolo DAlene emerged from a group of 15 to lead going to the last and run on to win by three quarters of a length from Walkon.

Henderson had also won with My Tent Or Yours, Sprinter Sacre then made it four wins for the day when Minella Forfitness won the handicap hurdle.

Having done all his winning this winter in soft or heavy going, the faster ground here might have been an issue for Albert Bartlett winner At Fishers Cross in the John Smiths Sefton Novice Hurdle.

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Grand National 2013: Little Josh becomes second horse to die over the big Aintree fences