If you have had a piece of equipment or a vehicle worked on lately, then you know when the repair bill comes, it can be shocking. Maybe you were listening to the TV or radio and heard news that was shocking. Or perhaps, you simply ventured out into public, and got a good taste of what passes for fashion and music in the year 2024. But do you know what is truly shocking? What shocks more than all these other shocking experiences added together, and then multiplied by eight? An electric fencer.

If you have spent much time at all around livestock, then you know how convenient this temporary (or maybe not so temporary) fencing strategy can be. It works wonderfully for keeping cattle on a corn stalk field in the winter (except when deer run through it), it can be used to keep horses organized on a piece of grass for the summer (again, unless deer run through it), and it can be used for extra security in the corral by making a couple of wires “hot.” If you are even a little bit familiar with this type of fence, then you also understand the perils associated with this common and somewhat exciting bit of farm and ranch equipment. If you are not, here is a brief and basic overview.

A smooth wire is run around an area in which you wish for livestock to stay in, or stay out of. The wire is held on small posts by plastic insulators, and a fence energizer (fencer) is then attached to the fence with a wire. A second wire is grounded to a grounding rod, and the fencer is plugged into an electrical outlet or battery. The fencer sends a small charge through the wire and once the circuit is completed by touching the fence and the ground, a nonfatal yet typically disappointing charge is then dispensed into whatever it is that is touching the fence, thus deterring the animal from trying to leave the temporary (or maybe the not so temporary) pen. There, I’m sorry that was so boring, but that is vital information for the rest of the story.

In the summer of 1992, an 8-year-old me had gone to a friend’s house for an afternoon of fishing. His granddad was going with us, and it was a short walk from their milk barn down to the pond. It was an even shorter walk if we cut through the heifer pasture, which obviously we did. When we got to the (electric) fence, we needed to cross it. My friend shouted, “be careful the fence is hot” (agriculturists shorthand for energized). His granddad said, “no it is not” and to prove his point reached out his hand and took a good grip of the wire. Being eight, and not terribly wise in the ways of the world, I said, “yeah see friend, it’s not” and with that also grabbed the wire. I am unsure how to describe what happened next to someone who has not had this exhilarating experience, but I will try. There was a snap that I almost perceived before I felt, then my heart took three beats in the space where there should have only been one, and finally my arm instinctually shot backward while also feeling like it was cramping up. Aside from my legs shaking wildly, I was unharmed. “I thought you said it was off,” I said to his grandpa, who was practically doubled over with laughter, “I guess it wasn’t,” he said.

This was my first encounter with this particular nemesis, and it left a lasting impression. I would be very careful around fence for quite some time. The thing is, because of the amount of time spent around electric fence, this would not be the last encounter. Most of the times I have gotten zapped have probably been forgotten, they are mostly uneventful, and probably a result of laziness on my part. However, some have been so spectacular that their memory has been permanently imprinted on my brain, such as that time I faced off with the fence during feeding.

It was very wet out, I’m not sure how many days it had been raining, but to say it was wet and muddy would be like referring to Free Willie as a small minnow. My wife was in the tractor and haybuster and I was getting the gate for her. It was a typical 14-foot pipe gate. I had opened the gate as far as I could to help her pass through easily, and because it would not stay open on its own, I was standing there holding it. As she passed through, I naturally took a step backward still holding onto the gate.

When I stepped backward, the back of my wet jeans made contact with the hot wire of the pen next door. OH BROTHER, have you ever been able to smell in color before? I did that day. I was so superbly grounded standing there in the mud and soaked to the bone, that electrical continuity was a 12 1/2 on a scale of 1 - 10. First, I heard this audible snap, followed by an involuntary loss of control of my legs. My ol heart took off at 1723 beats a minute, and I was certain I had been shot. I had not, but I had also not moved enough to free myself from this precarious situation, that right, I took a second blow from the fencer with anger management issues. Really the only silver lining to the entire situation was that I was soaked head to toe from all the rain, and wet pants did not look out of place.

Another run-in, so to speak, took place here about a month ago. I was doing chores after work one night and was walking through some mud. But to my dismay, the mud held a secret. Concealed beneath a thin layer of mud was a layer of ice. I took a big step, and my left foot went skating, and my right foot left the conversation entirely. That is where I promptly took a seat right there in the mud. You might think to yourself, well nothing hurt but your pride Jake, but you would be wrong. You see, the reason I took a big step was I was trying to step over an electric fence. With myself well grounded in the wet earth, and sitting firmly atop the hot wire I turned loose a falsetto chorus that would make Michael Jackson stand in awe, and I absolutely had the moves like Jagger.

The final incident is actually more of a tail of avoidance. My family was heading to Thanksgiving, and we stopped to water cows on the way out. I got out of the pickup and had to step over the fence to get to the well. Now I could have walked 20 feet to put down an insulator, but that would have been ridiculous. Instead, I had been in the habit of holding the wire down with an axe and just stepping over it anyway, so this was business as normal. Unfortunately, I didn’t have an axe in this pickup, but there was a spade. I took the spade pushed the wire down and stepped over it, well part way over it. There I was, straddling the fence when the wire slipped off the spade, in hindsight using a rounded nose spade was a poor idea. I did the only thing I could do, I sprung straight up in the air like a surprised cat. The recoil in that wire was going to get me unless I reacted quickly, so up was the only immediate answer.

Now while in flight, my mind had a second to process the situation. If something wasn’t done in the horizontal axis immediately, I was just going to land back on the fence. So right there in midflight, I shifted my motion sideways, an act that is very difficult for a man of my stature. As you can expect it didn’t work very well, and the inside of my leg still managed to come down on the wire. Now I’m falling sideways, and the change in momentum caused me to lose my footing. I desperately flailed around with the spade trying to brace myself, that also didn’t work. The entire mess consisting of spade, good boots, and a fresh snap shirt came crashing back to earth in a heap, a well-dressed heap, but a heap nonetheless.

As anyone would, I instantly popped to see if my family had paid attention. Of course they did, because this all took place directly in front of the pickup truck. My wife had tears running from her eyes she was laughing so hard; and I think we were three miles down the road before she could finally get enough air to ask me what in the world that was. That my dear was a move the rest of the world is not yet ready to see, and with a little luck and increased vigilance, won’t have to see again.